


Delta

by minhyukwithagun (deadlylampshades)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Falling In Love, M/M, Mathematics, Pining, Roommates, Side Taeten, Slow Burn, kites, organic and all-natural pining for the soul, so many kites
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-01 08:49:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 48,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17241200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadlylampshades/pseuds/minhyukwithagun
Summary: It’s harder than he thought to be around Yuta. Sicheng wonders if it’s possible to want someone so much that it hurts to look at them.Because that’s certainly what it feels like.





	Delta

**Author's Note:**

  * For [uglyguccislippers (Hyb)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyb/gifts).



> yuwin deserves a fic about falling in love, okay. 
> 
> happy birthday my darling hyb, my partner in infernal crime. thank you so much for your constant inspiration, motivation and damnation. i do hope you enjoy 💕

The thing about falling in love is that it’s hard to mathematically quantify. There exists no single formula written down by Gauss, Pythagoras or Fermat that can be used to express love as an equation. There’s never been a calculation to represent it on a Cartesian plane. Which is a problem, really, because while Sicheng understands equations and graphs pretty well, love is another matter altogether.

The problem is how indistinct it is. Emotions do not fit in neat little boxes named ‘Anger’ or ‘Sadness’ that can be processed individually, rather they spill all over the place with no regard for any order, paint colours all blurring to brown. It makes it difficult, really, and Sicheng isn’t a fan of this. If love was perhaps more straightforward to understand he would be able to do this, he could find some manner to explain how the paradigm changes around him and it’s that illusive and enigmatic emotion named love that is to blame. Still, he didn’t study the six years necessary for his Masters degree to just give up in the face of a mathematical problem.

Falling in love is hard to quantify. Not impossible, though, not impossible. And if it’s not impossible then, logically it’s possible— and then, logically Sicheng should be able to solve it. He sort of has to, really. Because one thing he’s certain of is that there has to be some limiting level to love. After all, people don’t usually throw themselves upon swords for the affairs that have only been encountered in dark corners — but they could in time, theoretically, as their feelings deepened.

So there had to be a threshold of sort, a number, a value, a _point_ immediately before it changes, where after adequate intervention, recovery is possible. And there’s the actual point, the one when crossed means love has clawed its way into the bloodstream, coursing through like a poison, and there’s no cure.

Sicheng needs to figure where that point is — and avoid it, because he’s seen the way his heart races when he looks at his roommate, and he doesn’t know how much more of this he can take. 

 

𝚫

 

“You're so pretty, you're like a doll,” Yuta muses to himself. He stretches himself out on the kitchen counter, flexing like a cat. “But one of those dolls from like a horror movie that makes blood drip down the hall and decapitates the homeowners.”

Sicheng pauses for a moment, as he grabs two sodas out of the fridge and slides one of them to Yuta, who waits until the last possible moment to catch it. A second later, and it would have slid right off the counter and smashed itself on the kitchen floor. And, rest assured, Sicheng would _not_ be cleaning that up.

“I think that's flattery.”

“Oh it definitely is.” Yuta slurps with far more noise than necessary, and Sicheng can’t really find it in himself to be too annoyed, which is annoying in itself. Feelings aren’t an excuse to indulge such bad habits.

“Do you have plans tonight?” Yuta asks as he stretches his arms out further out.

“Do you?” Sicheng throws the question back.

“I was hoping to watch the Amazing Race with you, honestly, but if you’re busy I guess I’ll just sadly jack off in my room and think about how much I miss you.” Yuta always had a problem with keeping a straight face, and even now, his giggles start to betray him.

“Yeah, fine, we can watch that,” Sicheng says, and attempts not to think too much about anything else.

Yuta always talks like this, it shouldn’t be a shock to him, and it never used to be, but that’s the problem: something new has been happening. This emotion, this _change_ , and Sicheng was too stupid to notice it earlier. They always say at the first sign of sickness, go see a doctor before the disease spreads, but no, Sicheng had assumed he was above all this.

The first time Yuta stole Sicheng’s breath away it was just an innocuous thing, all he did was smile and Sicheng was aware that this was not a conventional bodily function but didn’t think much of it, pushed it out of his mind because he just never expected Yuta to be so pleased at the dinner he had cooked. And when Yuta’s head fell into Sicheng’s lap when they were lying on the couch, watching some soccer match last weekend, and Sicheng started carding his hand through Yuta’s light brown locks, he tried to shove down the bubble of affection attempting to rise up. It didn’t mean anything, it was just a single occurrence.

But now it’s not a single occurrence. Now it’s just life. And Sicheng isn’t about that, not at all. He refuses to label it as love or anything like that, because it’s not. Not yet, anyway. Sicheng’s hormones have just taken an abrupt turn for the worst, most likely as a cause of all the genetically modified food they eat. Yuta didn’t protest when Sicheng switched them to grain-fed free range eggs, but the damage had already been done.

He’s already started to fall.

 

Summer comes like the end of a dream. It doesn’t feel like it’s approaching since there are hardly any signs of it and then, before you realize it, your eyes blink open, and despite your best attempts to cling to what was already disappearing, your unconsciousness unravels before you. That was summer for Sicheng. He knew it was coming, he saw the flowers that bloomed in the lobby downstairs, he picked up Yuta’s antihistamines in preparation of the pollen-filled air and he’d noticed that his boss had swapped out jumpers for short-sleeved shirts.

 

But he never really stopped to consider the implications of Summer. Sure, it got warmer. So did everything. That’s what happens under the effects of climate change. Summer was as irrelevant to him as his desktop wallpaper. He continued on as he always did, and his weekends were always occupied with Yuta’s arrival.

 

It’s only when he got home from work on a Friday evening that he saw the suitcases in the hallway. He nears towards them, weary, as if the teeth of the zipper might snap at him. It isn’t a delivery, for one, he never recalled ordering _suitcases_ online, but none of their neighbours seem keen on claiming it either. Sicheng places his briefcase next to the door and inspects the luggage. They have a Rilakkuma tag and when he flips it open, it literally has his address written on it. He’s about to unzip the compartment of the biggest bag when a figure jumps out from behind.

“Hey, that’s mine!”

Sicheng stumbles backwards, confused and mildly ready to fight to the death — when he sees that no, it’s not a luggage bandit, it’s just Yuta.

“Yuta?” Sicheng says, staring at him in disbelief.

“Oh, it’s you,” Yuta grins, and lowers his protective grip on the suitcase. “Howdy pardner!”

“I think I would have preferred if you called me a slur,” Sicheng scowls, face contorting in disgust.

Yuta ignores him, steps out from behind the suitcase and pats Sicheng on the back. “I was taking a nap behind the case and I didn’t hear you. What took you so long?”

“I was at _work_ ,” Sicheng snaps. “And you should be too. What is all this luggage doing here?”

Yuta blinks. “Did you really forget?”

“Forget what?”

“It’s Summer.”

“Yeah, Yuta, I _think_ I know what the seasons are, I did pass second grade but thank you for your concern,” Sicheng says, shoving the key into the door.

Yuta’s tone is patient. “It’s summer vacation, Sicheng. For schools.”

It’s ironic that even though it’s Summer, Sicheng finds his mind starting to freeze. “What?”

“Yup. The monsters are back with their parents. All of them. So, I’m off work. Which means, I get to come back home.” Yuta waves his hands to the suitcases. “Hence all the luggage.”

“It’s summer vacation. You’re moving back in,” Sicheng says faintly, still staring at the door.

“I never moved out!” Yuta protests. “But yeah, can you go inside so I can bring these in? I totally forgot my keys at home last weekend.”

Sicheng nods, and opens the door for him, and Yuta stumbles through, trailing his luggage behind him. He drops them all in the center of the room, and goes out to retrieve the rest, all while Sicheng stares, stunned.

He knows, objectively, that schools end. He knows this because he used to spend his Summers slaving away in his father’s noodle shop, where he accrued a hatred of soy sauce and a consequent Masters degree in Mathematics. The driving factor for this being the noticeable lack of noodles in the field. He also objectively knows that Summer is a season, and according to the nature of the Earth’s orbit around the sun, it is Summer now.

And Yuta’s been in this job for almost two years, and he spent the last vacation in this apartment as well. But things were _different_ then, he was still dating his very large ex-boyfriend, his hair was still purple, and most importantly, and Sicheng can’t stress this enough, he did not have feelings for Yuta then.

But now.

Now it’s another situation.

It was one thing to deal with Yuta in small doses for a weekend. It was difficult, sure, having Yuta just be there, all stupidly handsome and awfully kind, when it was for a little under two days. It’s quite another thing to spend all day with him indefinitely.

Sicheng is aware of those little ‘quirks’ of Yuta’s, and he uses that world liberally. When Yuta wakes up in the morning, throat scratchy and voice hoarse, and begs Sicheng to ‘ _make me coffee, the good kind please, you always make it best_ ’, it’s certainly a test of willpower on Sicheng’s part not to do something foolish like record him saying his name and making it his damn ringtone.

But it’s also bearable. If it’s only on the weekends.

And then it’s the matter of their movie habits. Yuta is what could politely be called ‘a cinephile’ and what could impolitely be called ‘someone obsessed with Japanese animations’. When he isn’t sleeping or working out, he can be relied upon to be parked in front of the TV and, more often than not, Sicheng ends up watching it with him. It’s just polite. And Sicheng is aware that Yuta is a cuddly sort of person, and he indulges this side of him, letting Yuta wrap himself around Sicheng like he’s a blanket, face propped up on his shoulder, pulling him so close he can feel the tickle of his stubble against his jaw. And it’s certainly become a source of mental strain for Sicheng lately, but they only really watch shows on a Saturday, so it’s not so bad.

And then there’s his hookups. It’s fine, Sicheng doesn’t care who Yuta sleeps with. Really it’s fine, it’s whatever, he can fuck whoever he wants, Sicheng really doesn’t care. It’s just inconvenient. He doesn’t like seeing naked men and women leave his apartment. That’s all it means. And Yuta doesn’t have the time for hookups at the moment, at least when he’s at their apartment anyway, Sicheng doesn’t really want to think about what he gets up when he’s at Bishop’s. He did ask once, in a very subtle way,whether Yuta was permitted visitors in his rooms at the academy and Yuta had laughed and said that while, yes he was, generally escorting a lover through halls of high school kids was a boner killer like none other.

The point remains that it’s been months since Yuta last invited a hook-up home with him, for the reason that there just hardly is enough time in the weekends for him to do so. But if he was going to be here all week, all month, all the time, there’d be no reason not to.

And Sicheng doesn’t think he has the stomach for it. It’s nothing else, it’s just inconvenient, that’s it. He just doesn’t like the idea that in the next room there’s someone touching Yuta, there’s someone pleasing Yuta, there’s someone kissing Yuta and Yuta enjoys it more than he would with anyone else, and Yuta would not be thinking about anyone else, he’d definitely not thinking about Sicheng—

Yuta’s just going to be everywhere. He’s going to spill himself like ink all over the pages of Sicheng’s life, and he always wanted more of Yuta to himself, but he doesn’t know if he’s strong enough to handle it. Not when his own cocktail of emotions bubbles up everytime Yuta even smiles at him.

Yuta trudges in the last suitcase and slams the door behind him. “This is gonna be so much fun. We can spend so much time with each other!”

Yuta grins and Sicheng’s heart already starts to falter.

 

𝚫

 

Living with Yuta is sometimes like living with a very eager and intelligent dog. There’s plenty of evidence to substantiate this argument, but Sicheng summarizes it all to three known facts. The first one is that Yuta loves running around in the park. He fucking _loves_ the park. Sicheng never understood people who jogged for fun, and then he met Yuta, and he _definitely_ doesn’t understand it now — but Yuta loves it. He’ll drag Sicheng out of bed on a Sunday morning, just after sunrise, and drag him to the park. Usually he’s kind enough to leave him with a cup of black coffee and the morning newspaper on the park bench while he races around in circles, just shy of chasing his own tail.

“Gotta keep my cardio going,” is what he says inexplicably, plugging in his earphones. Sicheng still doesn’t understand what those words mean. His cardio is literally _always_ going, if his cardio stopped going, he’d be literally dead.

He’ll run around for a good couple of minutes, maybe longer, time isn’t linear on a Sunday morning, and then he’ll come back, face flushed and his tank top stuck to his body with sweat.

“God, I love mornings,” Yuta says, breath coming out in pants. He wipes off his forehead. “What’s happening in the news?”

“Death,” Sicheng replies, folding his newspaper. “People died.”

“That’s so sad. Want to get bagels?”

“I guess, but I crave sleep more than I do carbohydrates,” Sicheng says, longing for his sheets. “This is the fourth time this week you’ve made me go jogging with you.”

“It’s summer, you need to be active!” Yuta says, running on the spot. He takes his FitBit step count more seriously than his bank balance. 

“You know I hate being awake,” Sicheng grumbles even as Yuta pulls him up from the bench, tossing his coffee cup in the trash for him.

“Really? I’ve never heard you say that before.”

Sicheng’s eyebrows furrow. “What are you talking about? I literally complain about this everytime that you wake me up on a Sunday morning? I’m not a God fearing man, yet I’m up early than all those people who go to church, I work five days a week, I genuinely don’t deserve this, why can’t you just run at a reasonable hour, I tell you this all the time—”

Sicheng breaks off when he hears Yuta’s decisive but soft laughter.

“You’re riling me up, aren’t you?”

Yuta knocks into Sicheng’s shoulder, grinning. “Come on, this is way more fun than being asleep.”

“You are _literally_ wrong, I cannot explain how wrong you are, oh my _God_ —”

 

𝚫

 

The second thing that makes Sicheng think of him as a dog is his unbelievably simple dietary habits. Sicheng was labelled a fussy eater by his mother as a child, but in his opinion, it’s his _mouth_ , anything that goes in it should be personally vetted, and he’s allowed to disagree based on petty reasons like his distaste for tuna, or the fact that green food colouring just looks weird.

Yuta has no such reservations, and this becomes abundantly clear when left to his own devices. He’ll eat instant ramen, for all meals, for all occasions. If he’s feeling particularly hardcore, he might toss in some flash frozen peas and pretend that counts as vegetables, and if he’s in a mood to play God, he’ll turn it into a soup of sorts, slurping noises resounding around their apartment. Regardless, the fact remains he will eat the same flavour of ramen multiple times daily, that Sicheng buys it with the frequency one would buy a bag of dog food. At least dog food is more cost effective.

Sicheng has to take it on himself to feed him — no, not to feed him, to _nourish_ him. It’s all good and well that Yuta exercises with manic frequency but if all he stuffs into his body is sodium and starch, he’ll still die at age thirty as a wrinkly raisin. He does get the feeling that sometimes Yuta enjoys the idea of being cooked for a little too much, particularly when he starts texting Sicheng on a Thursday already with his ideas for the weekend menu — but the fact remains even if Sicheng throws a fit and refuses to cook for him, Yuta will just go back to his horrible, horrible noodles.

“I once had a nightmare I got strangled by noodles,” Yuta tells him one day, over the noises of his own slurping.

“And then?” Sicheng sighs, opening up the freezer and tossing a chicken breast into a bucket of water, mentally planning the meal for the evening.

“Woke up really hungry. Had noodles. Felt like it was a good choice.”

It’s concerning, really, his dependence on the awful things. But, he does genuinely seem to be touched when Sicheng deems it worthy to cook for him, and maybe the smile he gives in return is worth any effort.

 

𝚫

 

The third and final problem with his semi-canine roommate becomes clear in the way he interacts with Sicheng, and by that, Sicheng entirely refers to the way more often than not, he ends up with some part of Yuta’s anatomy strewn across him. It started out harmless enough, Yuta leaning his head against Sicheng while they watched reruns of Dexter together, and Sicheng being too tired to shove him away. That just opened the gateway, though.

Sicheng’s body is effectively just a tool for Yuta’s disposal. When it rains, it’s Yuta who tugs the umbrella in his hand and links their arms together, forcing them to work alongside like they’re out of a Katherine Heigl romantic comedy.

“It’s only because you’re taller,” is what Yuta says, batting his eyelashes like he’s getting paid to do it.

But it doesn’t end there. Yuta’s just a very physical person. He likes to _touch_ , and he really likes to touch Sicheng. It’s just part of who he is, really, and Sicheng can’t pretend to be surprised when he finds Yuta rubbing the back of his neck or pinching his arm to get his attention. He is nonetheless surprised when he falls asleep with his head in Sicheng’s lap, and Sicheng is just a little too polite to wake him, and just has to sit there, brushing the hair out of his eyes until he finds himself being pulled under to sleep as well.

It’s never awkward.

That’s one constant in this chaotic world, at least. WIth Yuta, it’s never awkward. It’s always natural, it always just feels like it’s what’s supposed to happen, their arms are always meant to link together, they always should be connected by a touch. Sicheng might complain, might bat away his hand every now and again, but he never means it, not really.

So in that respect, yes, he’s like a dog who just throws himself at Sicheng the second he sees him --  the only difference being the lack of facelicking.

 

𝚫

 

Sicheng knows that the way he interacts with Yuta is not how he should. He knows that he’s been sailing on dangerous water, and the boat he’s been using has started to leak and there’s only so long he can bail out the water before he’ll start to drown. But that’s why he tries to rationalize his behaviour to himself, because it’s easier to justify than it is to stop.

There are 168 hours in a week. This is a fact. And Yuta, Yuta is not there for most of these hours. As a consequence of his job being at a boarding school, he spends the whole week there, coaching the ridiculously over competitive soccer team. It’s also a two hour bus ride away and the very unfortunate consequence of that is that it means the time that Sicheng gets to spend with Yuta is very, very little. So little in fact that Sicheng counted it.

Yuta arrives at 7:20pm on a Friday night and leaves at 5:20pm on a Sunday. That’s 44 hours. That’s barely anything. In fact, as Sicheng calculated it, it’s only 26.2% of the week. Rounded up, of course. Sicheng hates overly long numbers. It’s just unnecessary.  

When it’s put like that, it’s understandable why Sicheng favours his time with Yuta so much. He’s just trying to give these strange feelings inside a logical reason to be there. There’s just so little _time_. Barely a quarter of his life gets taken up by his presence, and Sicheng isn’t one for sentiment but he misses when Yuta isn’t around.

He just has a magnetic pull. And that’s the explanation Sicheng chants to himself when he catches himself gazing at the door to Yuta’s empty room for too long. How could he not want to spend as much time possible with his best friend with it was so limited?

Sicheng sighs. The summer has been something from a dream. Any moment that he’s not tapping away at his computer at work, making those graphs, meeting with clients about their investments, he gets to spend with Yuta, and if that’s not something to be grateful for. And he is grateful for this time, absolutely.

But it just ignites that fire inside Sicheng’s chest whenever he’s alone with Yuta. Sicheng isn’t someone who loves easily. Or at all. He barely understands the tangle of emotion, let alone what it means. It would be easier, he reflects, if he could graph it, find some sort of equation. Love isn’t linear, that much he’s certain of. Linear functions are logical, you can see them coming, and Sicheng had never seen this coming at all, not at all. He was blindsided. He can’t even recall the exact moment his feelings of friendship blossomed into whatever… _this_ is.

He’s a man of logic though, and he knows that if it’s possible to develop feelings, it’s also possible to lose them. So he’s prepared to wait for that but the prospect feels hollow. It’s the only way forward for him. Yuta deserves far better than Sicheng could ever give to him, and Sicheng doubts whether his own affection would ever be enough. It probably isn’t. It could never be enough. He knows that there’s a point of no return, a point where his own feelings outweigh all logical decision making, and all he can hope is to turn back before he reaches that.

Summer complicates that process though. Summer is difficult, and summer is difficult on Sicheng. It’s harder than he thought to be around Yuta so much.

He wonders if it’s possible to want someone so much that it hurts to look at them.

Because that’s certainly what it feels like.

 

𝚫

 

Yuta sometimes reminds Sicheng of a natural disaster. Not a serious one, God forbid. No, Yuta isn’t chaotic like that, he’s not _destructive_ like that. Yuta is rather more like the gentle kind of disasters, the _constructive_ kind of disasters. There’s flowers, Sicheng has heard about, that need fire to bloom, that require that intense blaze to topple across the landscape, to destroy — and only then can they grow anew, only then can their seeds crack open and that first stem can take its breath of fresh air.

Yuta is a bit like a fire. Fires can be harmful after all, but Yuta’s fire isn’t the kind that burns down homes or the kind that scars — Yuta’s fire is everything about that. It’s perhaps an accurate comparison as well, Yuta is abnormally warm. He sleeps shirtless in the dead of winter. It’s terrifying.

Rain breaks through for the first time in this never-ending season. it’s been storming the whole day and the windows rattle with the force of the wind outside. Yuta has left from the morning on a grocery run, and Sicheng is glad he decided not to go with. Droplets are speckled across the surface of the glass, and mist cracks under the doorframe and penetrates throughout the room. But Sicheng doesn’t really get cold often, and it’s not just because he pays the heating bill — because God knows Yuta would never do it — no, it’s more because of how right now Sicheng sits comfortable and snug in one of Yuta’s hoodies. It’s an old one, faded white and when Sicheng is bored, he rolls around the pills of the fabric between his fingers. It’s warm in a way unlike any other clothing.

It’s not like Yuta notices anyway, he collects hoodies for fun at this point, and he’s always got a few spare ones coming out of the laundry. He seems to enjoy going shirtless under hoodies, instead of wearing actual clothes. Really, there’s no reason to consider it to be an issue at all, there’s no sort of underlying reason behind why Sicheng feels all secure nestled in the fleece. It always smells of Yuta, as well, musky but not unpleasant, with a tinge of his oversharp deodorant. Sicheng had accused Yuta of smelling like a highschooler judging by the freeness of his hand as he douses himself in body spray, but hours later, when the initial stench dissipates, it’s not an altogether unpleasant smell. It’s nice, sort of. Just because it reminds him of Yuta.

Sicheng has the TV on, not quite watching, but not quite willing to be in his room, the heat is always better in the lounge anyway — and he gets to have full view when Yuta comes home and commandeers the area with his presence. He’s pacing back and forth, plotting out game plans in his head that occurred to him while shopping, muttering under his breath. Sometimes he’ll look up at Sicheng, and point at him.

“If you were on defense, and you saw Jaemin coming up at you, would you run?” Yuta demands.

“I avoid any and all teenage boys, so yes, definitely,” Sicheng says.

Yuta nods. “Okay right, that helps. Ugh, where’s the whiteboard?” He breaks off into unintelligible muttering under he finds the whiteboard hidden behind the bookshelf — a consequence after the last game of Pictionary at the Christmas party that went rather pear-shaped and certain friendships were almost broken over the argument of whether the drawing in question looked more like a sundial or a trampoline.

(Fuck what Yuta said. It _did_ look like a sundial. It wasn’t Sicheng’s fault they lost to Taeyong and Ten. Those two had some strange telepathic connection. It was the only explanation for being so good on a team even though they just met.)

“Marker,” he says decisively and scans the room. His gaze lingers over every shelf, every crevice, onto the couch and then onto Sicheng — which is where it pauses.

“Sicheng,” Yuta says suddenly. “Are you wearing my clothes?”

In hindsight, perhaps hoodies were a bad item of choice — Sicheng burns inside now, unable to trap the glowing blush. “Ah.”

“That is mine, isn’t it?” There’s no possible excuse. “I wore that a month ago, I remember, and then I had just put it down on Sunday night and forgot to take it with me.” Yuta takes a step closer, gazing at Sicheng with such intensity that he feels the need to cross his arms, shielding himself.

“It was cold. I couldn’t find anything else, and you have plenty to wear anyway. I didn’t think you’d miss it,” Sicheng says. He hopes he sounds defiant. More likely than not, he sounds like a naughty child who was caught stealing from the cookie jar.

“You’d be wrong about that, of course I’d notice,” Yuta says with a quirk of his eyebrow.

Sicheng instantly raises his arms and attempts to roll off the offending garment but is halted by Yuta’s hand on his chest, smiling at him like he’s got a secret trapped behind that pretty teeth.

“That being said, I don’t mind at all.” Yuta doesn’t let his hand up. He’s somewhere above Sicheng’s heart.

“You don’t?” Sicheng clarifies. Yuta’s a little too close. It’s like staring into the sun.

“Nah. It’s kinda cute. You’re like one of those puppies that climb all over their owner’s shirts while they’re at work,” Yuta says, and then ruins everything by reaching his hand up to Sicheng’s cheek and pinching it, unable to control his cooing.

Sicheng slaps away his hand, fairly certain he might incinerate himself if this disrespect continues. “Shut up. You can have your dumb hoodie if it’s that important—”

Yuta finally steps back, eyes twinkling. “I’m just teasing. Genuinely, it’s so cute. _You’re_ so cute. I don’t mind sharing my clothes with you, you know that. It’s just damaging to my ego when you look better in it than me, I’m certain you understand. I’m used to being the most attractive man in the room and then I see you, and I realize it’s pointless.”

Sicheng is going to throttle Yuta one day. It’s been long enough that Sicheng knows when he’s joking and knows when he’s being serious, and it’s rather distressing to realize that this time he’s being serious.

 

𝚫

 

Yuta has always been what could be considered as flirty. And that’s the polite way to put it. Far be it from Sicheng to place judgements on the amount of sex anyone was partaking in, it hardly was his business — but Sicheng was also well aware that Yuta seemed to wear this label with prize. For Christmas last year, Ten got him a commemorative plaque with his name engraved as “Slut of the Year.” Yuta had blubbered tears of joy as he opened it.

Even though, really, Yuta wasn’t that much of a slut. Again, not really Sicheng’s business but it wasn’t that Yuta was promiscuous — rather that he just... really seemed to enjoy sex. Which was fine. Sex was fine. A worthy pastime, though hardly as good as kite flying.

Yuta was just, very, loud. He also seemed to be very... physical. Not that Sicheng ever slept with Yuta, the very idea caused his brain to start smelling like burning rubber, but certain hints do seem to suggest that Yuta is perhaps a rough lover. The most noticable is the occasions where the walls shake. The second was that time there was a crack in the plaster where, presumably, someone was thrown against it. Still, it couldn’t be too bad, none of Yuta’s partners had to be escorted out by an ambulance — though there was an incident where Doyoung visibly limped down the stairs.

It’s Doyoung reappearance in Yuta’s life that’s reminded Sicheng of this particular trait, judging from the way Yuta keeps trying to suck his soul through his mouth every time he walks through the door.

Doyoung would tentatively be called Yuta’s friend with benefits. Just without being his friend.  

They don’t love each other, that should be said. Not that it would matter, if they did, it definitely wouldn’t matter to Sicheng — but he knows that Yuta doesn’t love Doyoung. He’s perfectly civil to the man when he’s not pressing him into mattresses or walls or inflatable jumping castles, but there’s a lack of those tender traits that Yuta exhibits to those he loves. He never offers to share his shitty noodles with Doyoung, he never asks Doyoung what he wants to watch on TV — he barely even offers to walk Doyoung outside after he’s finished reducing the man to a shell of his former self.

Sicheng’s forecast was correct: Yuta has been hooking up with Doyoung again since being on his vacation. There’s never any actual preparation or planning into their meetings, it’s at the most random of hours, sporadically throughout the week. Sicheng can’t be sure, but he imagines that Yuta just randomly texts him whenever he gets hard and Doyoung shows up, pre-lubed.

That makes Sicheng feel better, because _clearly_ , it’s just about sex then, no feelings attached if they don’t even set up proper dates. Sicheng doesn’t like thinking about the reasons _why_ it makes him feel better.

But this system also has its drawbacks, because it’s a Saturday morning and Sicheng wants to ask Yuta if he wants any waffles, and opens the door to his bedroom and decides that he would prefer if he was blind.

It takes Sicheng sometime to come to the name of the device in Doyoung’s mouth, as red as Rudolph’s nose, and finally it hits him. A ball gag. He’s as naked as the day he was born, but upon noticing someone entering, he manages to twist his legs over so that the blanket covers his dick if little else, and for that Sicheng is grateful. His arms are tied to Yuta’s bedpost and his eyes flash open in alarm when he sees Sicheng enter.

“Right, sorry, I was looking for Yuta, didn’t mean to disturb,” Sicheng says in a rush, instantly backing away.

He doesn’t expect Doyoung to start yelling. His words are obscured by the gag, just mumbling, but it’s clear enough from his muscle movements that he’s trying to attract Sicheng’s attention.

“Uh. I don’t know what that means. Do you want me to leave—”

Doyoung frantically shakes his head. It’s around this time Sicheng notices the empty bottle of lube on the floor and decides he’s really not ready to deal with any part of this situation.

He’s too good hearted, that’s Sicheng’s problem. It would be much easier to just shut the door and leave Doyoung to his gags and his balls and whatever else he’s been doing with Yuta, but the man just appears in such distress, Sicheng can’t really just leave him to die.

Cautiously, treading each step with absolute care as if the floor of Yuta’s bedroom was more like a minefield, Sicheng nears towards Doyoung. There’s someone’s shirt on the floor next to his feet, and he tries to ignore the bruises blooming all over Doyoung’s neck and chest. Hope he enjoyed getting them.

“Do you want me to…?” Sicheng gestures to the contraption on his face. He really doesn’t want to be here.

Doyoung nods rapidly. There’s a trail of drool drying on his cheek.

Trying to touch it as little as possible in fear of diseases, Sicheng manages to figure out it’s a bit like a collar, and he reaches behind Doyoung’s neck, and unclips it. It’s almost an out-of-body experience.

The first thing Doyoung does it spit the gag out and inhale deeply, panting. Sicheng briefly decides he’s a good person, but not enough to undo the restraints on his arms as well. Doyoung did _choose_ to come over, it’s what he deserves for deciding to sleep with Yuta. Of course, Sicheng doesn’t care that he fucks Doyoung, but really, he’s seen Doyoung naked now, and there’s such little appeal, Doyoung’s so skinny and veiny, Yuta really could do so much better—

“Thank you,” Doyoung wheezes. He looks even more like a startled rabbit now. “Thanks so much. Sicheng, right?”

“Mm. That’s right. Yuta’s best friend and roommate.” Sicheng forces a smile. “Where is Yuta?”

“Oh, he had to go to the drug store and pick up some more lube,” Doyoung answers. It’s amusing how his hands still do the necessary conversational gestures even while his arms are immobile.

“And he left you like this?” Sicheng asks, almost concerned.

“I mean. Yes. But it’s kind of how it works between us,” Doyoung says. “It’s fine, really.”

“Well, if everything’s alright, I really should get back to my breakfast,” Sicheng says, starting to turn away, when Doyoung squeaks out:

“Wait!”

Sicheng crosses his arms. “Yes?”

“Right, the reason I needed your help. I’m really, really thirsty. And Yuta’s taking so long, could you please get me a glass of water? If it isn’t too much trouble?” Doyoung looks so hopeful.

“Are you actually serious?”

“Please.”

Sicheng isn’t just a good person. He’s a fantastic person. He’s a humanitarian. There should be library wings named after him when he dies, and actually he shouldn’t even die, his consciousness should be uploaded into the artificial intelligence network and a cyborg should carry on his likeness.

Those are his thoughts as he sets the glass of water next to Doyoung’s head. He’s kind enough to bring a straw. He’s not going to feed him from the hand.

“Thank you so much, Sicheng, really, you’re such a good guy.” Water dribbles out of his chin.

“You got it.” Sicheng flashes an insincere thumbs up and leaves him, just in time to hear the door opening. Yuta’s wearing a pair of RayBans and carrying a suspicious paper bag.

“Sicheng! I didn’t think you’d be up yet.” There’s a line of bite marks that encircle his collarbone like a necklace. Sicheng starts to feel queasy.

“I see Doyoung slept over.”

Yuta grimices. “Did he bother you? I told him to be quiet—”

“Oh, he was quiet. I think the ball gag made sure of that.”

It’s disappointing that Yuta’s wearing such giant shades. It means that Sicheng can’t see the shock that crosses his face. “I am sorry you had to see that.”

“It’s fine,” Sicheng says, waving his hand like it’s no big deal. “He just wanted some water.”

“Still. It probably wasn’t the nicest view to start your Sunday morning.” Yuta hauls something out of the bag. It’s a neatly wrapped cinnamon doughnut, that he hands to Sicheng. “Picked this up on the way. I know it’s your favourite. Consider it a preemptive peace offering for making you have to look at Doyoung. I don’t like looking at him either. In my dreams, I imagine he’s Sergio Ramos.”

Sicheng stares at the doughnut and tries to ignore the rush of affection he feels. He loves cinnamon doughnuts. “Well, enjoy your morning. I’ll be around.”

“You’re the best,” Yuta says, patting Sicheng on the back and disappearing into his room, the door slamming shut behind him.

Sicheng bites into the doughnut, savouring the spicy taste. He opens the refrigerator to pour out some milk when he hears raised voices, followed by the unmistakable sound of slurpy and sloppy kissing and Sicheng doesn’t have much of an appetite after that.

 

𝚫

 

Sicheng likes kites. Not in a childish way, obviously, not in that way that children like kites with their gormless staring and their grubby hands. He likes kites in the way that men of a certain age indulge themselves in their passions be it wine, model cars or sex with prostitutes. Kites demonstrate an incredible feat of engineering and mathematics, and the way that they soar up in the air is more precise than an eagle. Sicheng never feels more calm that staring up at the bright colours against a monotone sky.

He met Taeyong while flying kites at an open field, sometime during university. It was by no means a pleasant meeting, rather Sicheng had obnoxiously sauntered up to him and demanded the precise dealer that he bought the current model of box kite he was flying, and Taeyong had been polite enough to humour his interrogation, explaining that he imported it from Russia.

Surprisingly, being verbally assaulted at the first opportunity did not scare Taeyong off, rather the next time he saw Sicheng, desperately disentangling his old favourite diamond kite from the entrapments of a tree branch, it was Taeyong who helped him. It was perhaps the most serendipitous way to make a friend — and perhaps it took Sicheng some time to get used to the presence of this cautiously eager individual, it did make things easier when he spoke to his sister on the phone. He had a whole friend now, he really didn’t need anymore, his sister could stop worrying about him.

And then, of course, it was through Taeyong that Sicheng met Yuta.

So two friends.

One for weekdays, one for weekends, she had joked.

It was jarring how accurate she ended up being.

Of course, Sicheng did end up bonding with Taeyong over topics further than their shared admiration of kites — but it was ultimately the factor they had in common that joined them to begin with, and it’s become a tradition of sorts that they go the Kite Festival together. Yuta always calls it their yearly dates. It would be mortifying if not partially true — more than once Sicheng had festival goers gush over just how _cute_ it was that he flew kites with his boyfriend.    

“Have you decided which one you’re taking with?” Taeyong asks, settling down in the middle of the living room floor. He’s careful to tuck his feet in, not wanting to disturb the careful arrangement of kites surrounding him.

“Of course not. It’s a decision that takes time. Check the weather report, what’s the wind speed for Saturday?”

Taeyong opens up his phone. “27 kilometers an hour, same as it was when I checked an hour ago.”

“I’ve had my eye on taking my barn door kite out for ages, but oh, would she fly under such conditions?” Sicheng muses to himself. He moves off the stool and opens up the refrigerator. “Lemonade?”

Taeyong wrinkles his nose. “Not in the mood right now. Do you have orange juice?”

“I do but it’s Yuta’s.”

“I’m certain he won’t mind if I just have a single glass,” Taeyong replies, and he bats his eyelids just a little, and Sicheng rolls his eyes as he hands him his juice.

“Speaking of Yuta, actually,” Taeyong says as he sips, “Is he coming?”

“Of course he is. He always comes.”

There’s no greater testament to Sicheng and Yuta’s friendship than when Yuta sacrifices an entire day to stand in the hot sun and look at kites, despite not knowing very much about kites to begin with.

Taeyong nods. “Well, yes, but did you remember to invite him? It’s not like he would have gotten the date in his Facebook notifications. He might have other plans.”

Sicheng doesn’t understand where the issue is. “Well, obviously he’d cancel them then. It’s summer, it’s not like he has any work to do. And besides, the Kite Festival only happens once a year, it’s the event that’s unmissable.”

Taeyong pauses, fiddling with the rose quartz necklace around his neck. “Yes, I agree. To _us_. But, you know, Yuta has other priorities. I’m only bringing this up because I was speaking to Ten, and he tells me that they’re having graduation soon. If that’s the case, Yuta isn’t even going to be here.”

“He would have _told_ me,” Sicheng says, his brow furrowing. “Also _Ten_? Why were you talking to Ten?”

If Taeyong was the friend Sicheng spent time with when separated from Yuta, then Ten was that person for Yuta. They worked at the same school and apparently bonded quite instantly. Indeed, Ten was the only one of Yuta’s other friends that Sicheng bothered to remember the name of — though, if he had to be honest, Sicheng was always biased to liking him since he was called a number. That just really appealed to him.

“Oh,” Taeyong says, and it almost seems like he’s blushing. “We just, uh, ran into each other at the grocery store.”

“How? He doesn’t even live here, he stays at Bishop’s?” Sicheng is reasonably surprised that Taeyong even remembers Ten. They briefly encountered each other at a Christmas party hosted by Yuta two years ago, and that was about it.

“Wow, come to think of it, it was strange to see him there! Huh. Guess life really does that to you, sometimes.”

“I don’t understand—”

“Anyway,” Taeyong says decisively. “I’m pretty sure the graduation is on that Saturday. I just think you should call him — and maybe prepare for his absence.”

The thought is not a nice one, Sicheng decides. He doesn’t like this feeling. Yes, on a fundamental level, Yuta doesn’t _care_ about kites in the way that Sicheng does, but he always has no doubt that Yuta does enjoy the festival. There’s pounding music, there’s cotton candy, and there’s bright and colorful shapes in the sky — it sounds exactly like Yuta’s dream event.

And, the thing is, Yuta is sort of his lucky charm, if Sicheng was inclined to believe in something like that. There was something to be said about the shared history.

 

They didn’t even live together when Yuta named Sicheng’s first kite. It was a Delta kite, Sicheng remembers it vividly, a stark lime green and sickly yellow that while perhaps not the nicest colours individually, made a rather pleasing pattern together — especially when viewed from far away, such as when flown. Whatever, it was cheap, and Sicheng’s salary from tutoring maths to high schoolers was a quarter of what he currently makes.

It was still when Taeyong and Yuta had been dating - _that’s_ how long ago it was. Returning from a very unsatisfactory bar visit — while Taeyong sorted out the bill, Yuta had been kind enough to escort him to his car, despite Sicheng insisting it wasn’t necessary.

Yuta had walked him to where he was parked and peered in the backseat and voiced his confusion at the peculiar shape dominating the space, and Sicheng figured sooner rather than later he had to just get Yuta’s jest out of the way. So he told him, very bluntly: “I like kites. A lot more than the average person.”

And perhaps somewhere inside Yuta, he found this perplexing, but if that was the case, it didn’t show at all on his face. What showed instead was a wide grin and bright eyes.

“That’s so cool, Sicheng! What kind of kite is that? I didn’t even know kites like that existed, what the fuck? Does it fly?”

Sicheng remembers scoffing, of course it _flew_ , what else was the point, but he explained the basic physics behind a Delta kite and Yuta stared entranced, and perhaps it was the twinkle in his gaze that prompted Sicheng to open his backdoor and let Yuta have a closer look.

“Does it have a name?” he had asked, running his fingers over the fabric with the appropriate amount of reverence.

“I can’t say that it does,” Sicheng said. “I never really bother naming my kites. Can never figure out a naming scheme. How do you tell a kite’s gender?”

“Take them out on three dates, usually,” Yuta murmured, mostly to himself. “These colours are so cool. Reminds me of Teletubbies.” 

“Teletubbies?”

“Yeah, you know? Those weird fucking mascots with the televisions in their stomach? God, weren’t they like seven foot tall or some ridiculous shit like that?” Yuta remarked. “You watched it right?”

“I vaguely remember it, yes,” Sicheng said, blinking in confusion.

“Yeah, so, the green one. And the yellow one.” Yuta counted on his fingers. “This kite looks like them if they ever had like a kid, spawned from their loveless marriage. I think they were the heterosexual Teletubbies, anyway.”

“Are you implying there was a gay Teletubby?” Sicheng asked.

“Man, are you implying there _weren’t_ gay Teletubbies?” Yuta said, raising an eyebrow. “Tinky Winky literally had a boyfriend. The red one. His name escapes me, but trust me, my gaydar when I was seven? Impeccable.”

“I really don’t think Tinky Winky had a boyfriend,” Sicheng said, and he does remember that he was surprised how invested in this argument he was getting.

“Answer me this then,” Yuta said, leaning into the seat, crossing his legs and making himself comfortable. “Why else did the Teletubbies got banned in the United States? Because Americans thought it was promoting homosexuality. And you know what? They were _right_. I saw Tinky Winky’s magic bag and now? I’m bisexual. The correlation is literally right there.”

 “I don’t think you know what the word correlation means.”

“You got me there,” Yuta said, and he does that grin. That big grin that’s so annoyingly infectious that Sicheng can’t help but smile back when he sees it. “But I’m still right.”

“Why have you launched into this debate?” Sicheng asked, exhaling. He didn’t ever expect to devote any further moments of his life to the shows he watched as a child.

Yuta paused for a moment, staring at the kite and Sicheng could almost hear the gears in his mind. “Right, I remember. So the yellow one and the green one? If they had a child, it would be this, I think. So call it Telly. After their illicit lovechild, a result of a tryst in the dressing rooms before shooting.”

“What concerns me is you’re implying that Teletubbies are capable not only of copulation, but procreation,” Sicheng said, but in a very abstract way, he can kind of see Yuta’s way of thinking. “Telly, though, that’s not such an awful name.”

Yuta’s eyes sparkled.    

And ever since then, it’s kind of been their thing. Sicheng lets the box linger in the doorway until Saturday, and they rip it open together and Yuta peers in. While Sicheng does his measurements, checks the fabric for tears, Yuta picks the name. He hasn’t flown a kite that Yuta hasn’t named. It wouldn’t feel right.

He taps out a quick message to Yuta reminding him of the festival and locks his phone, purging the thought from his mind as he consults Taeyong on their choice of kites for the day.

 

𝚫

 

“Where’s Yuta?” Taeyong asks. His small frame is being crushed by the amount of bags piled on top of him. The sun still rises, orange peeking out from the chestnut of his hair. “Could he help us with some of these? I can’t feel my arms.”

“He’s not coming,” Sicheng mutters, opens the trunk of his car and starts to dump everything on the floor. He squints against the faint light and attempts to fumble for the straps of his canvas bags.

“Sorry, what?” Taeyong asks, moving closer, peering into the trunk himself as if perhaps Yuta was stashed in between the fold-up chairs.

“He’s not coming,” Sicheng repeats. “It’s graduation at the academy. You were right. He went back yesterday already to help set off. It’s an all day affair. Just write him off.”

Taeyong pauses. “Oh. Oh Sicheng, I’m sorry to hear that. I’m sure he would have come if he could.”

“I know,” Sicheng says.

Because he does know. Yuta had seemed absolutely torn when he answered the texts, sending more than five rows of crying emojis. _It’s the same day as graduation, and you know it’s compulsory that I’m there. I’m so sorry Sicheng, I promise we’ll go next year._ So, no, it wasn’t personal. It was entirely a matter of scheduling. But if Sicheng knows that, why does he still feel like this? Why does he still feel like a kite that had its strings cut, that’s just forced to drift on its own momentum, seconds away from crashing to the earth?

It’s not logical.

And he knows that next year, he’ll be here, but that’s _next year_ , and oh, so much can happen in a year. Sicheng is very much aware of that, and doesn’t think he wants to even imagine a time in which he doesn’t come to the kite festival with Sicheng, doesn’t run around under the open air, doesn’t grin in pride as he points out all the kites he’s named.

“You okay?” Taeyong asks and Sicheng shakes his head of this foolishness.

“Yeah, just missing the fact we don’t have someone to carry all this equipment around,” Sicheng jokes in a hollow tone. “Come on, we’ll have to make multiple trips.”

“Do you want to take a quick picture? Sun’s still rising. The colour’s really pretty,” Taeyong suggests, opening his phone. “We can send it to him, make him feel jealous while he’s stuck at a shitty graduation.”

“Don’t bother, I don’t think there’s a point.”

 

𝚫

 

The kite festival is the event of the year for kite flying enthusiasts and it’s understandable why. From the morning, it’s an incredible display, and the field shines with colours and shapes that could not even be fathomed. To walk under the festival sky is to walk under a kaleidoscope and Sicheng can never imagine getting tired of it.

Taeyong and Sicheng set up their own kites, numerous displays prepared for different times of the day, and they race among themselves and the people around them - but sometimes they do nothing but just look up.

Because being at a kite festival just means to look up, to let yourself be overwhelmed by the forces that are bigger than you.

Sicheng loves the kite festival more than his own damn birthday, and he can’t deny that Yuta’s absence is felt. He has a reasonable excuse. When Yuta’s here, he’s always feeding Sicheng snacks, offering to get him a drink when he’s thirsty, pointing out any acquaintances he may know. It’s so convenient.

That’s his justification. That isn’t the truth.

The truth is that when Yuta’s here, filled with wonder and he taps Sicheng’s shoulder every five minutes to point at a shape in the sky, to ask questions about the kites, to express his admiration on the view around him. His face shines like the color wheel under the kite-filled sky.

Sicheng misses Yuta, that much is obvious. But, he represses that feeling down and he’s rather good at that, and spends a good day with Taeyong, and when sunset splashes across the sky, they put away the more extravagant kites, and just fly their favourites, capturing that twilight glow.

They usually end up helping to clean up the festival, because unfortunately, Taeyong is a good person, and Sicheng can’t leave him alone in case someone steals him. It’s then and there, that Sicheng hears the steps of barefeet so familiar, he could hear them in his sleep.

“What’s Yuta doing here?” Taeyong asks, halfway through collapsing a gazebo.

“I have no idea,” Sicheng answers, eyebrows raised.

Yuta currently has his Havaianas in his hand, a sure sign that he ran a considerable distance. Sweat coats his flushed face and when he comes up to Sicheng and Taeyong, he takes a few moment to catch his breath.

“Are you—, Is the—” He huffs. “Is the festival done?”

“It’s past eight,” Sicheng says, in a tone softer than usual. “Of course, it’s done. We’re almost done packing up. What are you doing here? Why are you so tired?”

“I ran from the bus stop,” Yuta says in a rush. “Fuck, I really thought I’d make it. God, Sicheng, I’m so sorry. I really wanted to see it with you, but the academy kept dragging on with the ceremony and the bus took so long—”

“Yuta, it’s fine, I didn’t expect you here at all. Or even tonight, I thought you’d come home tomorrow,” Sicheng says, unable to keep the puzzled expression off his face. He’s aware of Taeyong staring at them.

“I had to try and make it,” Yuta says like it’s the most simplest thing in the world. “Well, I didn’t _succeed_ but I had to try. It’s the event of the year!” He says the last part in the tone Sicheng usually uses.

He can’t stop the fondness in his smile from showing. “Well, since you’re here, I’ll drive you home. I do insist upon footwear in my car though, per our usual agreement.” Far too many prior incidents of the stench of barefeet have left Sicheng cautious.

It’s only now that Yuta seems to notice that Taeyong is here as well. “How did the festival go?”

Taeyong smiles to himself. “It went wonderfully. Everyone loved Sicheng’s kites, that one you named Pazuzu was one of the most talked about.”

“I wish I could have seen it fly,” Yuta sighs. He sounds sincere.

Yuta is still huffing and puffing like he’s about to faint and Sicheng feels like that really isn’t healthy. “Go to the car, Yuta, there’s a water bottle there. We’re almost done here,” Sicheng says.

“Don’t be ridiculous, let me help you. Also that’s literally not how you take down a gazebo, I don’t know what you two are doing but it looks like you’re trying to turn it into a prison cell. Move over.”   

 

𝚫

 

“Taeyong sent me that picture you guys took together. You looked so beautiful against the sunrise, Sicheng,” Yuta says conversationally. He’s wearing shoes, as per the agreement. Sicheng adjusts the air conditioning when he notices Yuta starting to shiver as they drive home.

Sicheng’s knuckles grip the wheel. “Uh. Thanks. I didn’t know he sent it.”

“I’m glad he did! Your expression was so miserable though, I know you hate getting up early but I’m sure it was worth it for the festival, wasn’t it?” Yuta says, and ruffles Sicheng’s hair.

“Not while I’m driving please, do you want to die?” Sicheng grumbles, and moves his head away — and this just encourages Yuta’s bad behaviour, who stretches out to chase him.

“I missed you, let me have my fun,” Yuta pouts and strokes the hairs at the back of Sicheng’s neck, ignorant to the goosebumps that emerge when he touches the skin there.

“I almost drove past our turnoff now because of you.” Sicheng swerves to the next lane, and tries to ignore the feel of Yuta’s fingers. It’s extremely difficult. “How was graduation?”

“Boring. None of my team graduated since they’re all like five years old. Five or seventeen. I don’t know the difference. Something like that,” Yuta yawns. “Oh, take a right here.”

“Why? Home’s the other direction.”

“Yes, I know where I live. I have a quick errand to run.”

A sigh escapes Sicheng’s lips. “Yuta, I’m so tired, I’ve been up since five in the morning. Is this really necessary right now?” Still, he turns right.

“It’ll be five minutes. Trust me.”

Unfortunately for Sicheng, it’s not really much of a choice. They don’t talk much then, and the route Yuta navigates them is so familiar that Sicheng wonders why Yuta just didn’t outright tell him where he was going. The store, probably, but they just drove past—

“The park? Really?” Sicheng spits out as they approach the enclosing of trees. “You just had to go on a fucking jog, I am exhausted—”

“Sicheng,” Yuta says, amusement evident, “Please get out of the car.”

“Why should I get out of the fucking car, can you give me one good reason—”

Yuta hops out of the passenger side and opens the back doors. “Because we’re going kite flying, obviously, and I need help with that. Come on.”

It takes Sicheng about a minute before he turns off the ignition and opens the door, and even then he’s still not entirely sure how to process everything. “Wait, Yuta, what? Most of my kites are disassembled though, Yuta, and some are broken, maybe won’t even fly,” he murmurs, peering into the window of the backseat.

“What about that one?”

Sicheng frowns. “Really?”

It was just a diamond kite. There was nothing special or unique about it in the slightest — in fact Sicheng brought it with him, with the idea to give it away if he found any young enthusiasts at the festival, but it seemed to have completely slipped his mind. “But it’s so… boring?”

“Wow, that’s literally my son. I gave birth to him myself, his name is Wentworth,” Yuta gasps, grabbing the kite with more force than he probably should and closing the door behind him. “Come on, it’s getting late and you keep complaining that you’re tired and old so let’s fly.”

“I never said I was old, _you_ are literally two years older than me, where did you even—”

Yuta silences Sicheng by grabbing his hand and deliberately leading him inside the park. There’s barely anyone here, but why would there be, it’s close to midnight on a Saturday night. Cigarette butts line the path and trash overflows in the bins, empty fast food packets tucked into the trees. There are a thousand better places to be than the fucking park.

Sicheng kind of feels like there’s no place that he’d rather be, though.

“Is here okay?” Yuta asks, face shining under the streetlamp. It’s clear that he’s just as tired. His eyes are darkened by bags and even now, he suppresses a yawn.

“A little more to the left, so we can catch the wind,” Sicheng directs him. “But, Yuta, we don’t have to do this, you know, you see me and my kites all the time, and there’s always next year for the festival.”

“I want to,” Yuta says simply in a tone of voice that invites no arguments. “This is our day where we fly kites, and I’m not going to let it end until we do. Come on, it’ll be fun.”

The kite in question, _Wentworth_ , is an emerald green and Sicheng launches it into the sky. It hesitates before it catches the evening breeze, and when it does, it isn’t even that high. It’s more like a gentle observer, casting its eyes on the world beneath.

It’s not impressive, but Yuta claps when it raises and can’t stop himself hitting Sicheng on the shoulder. “Isn’t it so cool?”

“Yuta, I flew like fifteen kites today, and saw literally hundreds more and this is the most objectively dull.”

“Yeah, but _I_ like it,” Yuta says, and he’s doing that thing again where he’s being so honest, like it never occurs to him to lie, or to dampen his own emotions. He always has to be sincere about everything.

It sets something strumming inside Sicheng’s veins like playing a guitar.

And it’s night. It’s dark, and Sicheng is tired, and his heart doesn’t know how to handle beating when it feels like his ribcage is wide open. Sicheng watches Yuta carefully, and his eyes are fixed in wonder as the kite circles in a figure-8. There’s amazement in his face, illuminating the curve of his cheekbones, and Sicheng wonders what it would feel like under his fingers. It would be easy too, to just let the handle go, and touch him before the kite even sinks to the ground. To not just touch him, but to hold him, to caress him.

He doesn’t. He’s not that foolish.

But foolish enough to clear his throat, and Yuta’s sparkling eyes move back to Sicheng.

“Something wrong?” Yuta asks.

“Do you want to fly it?”

“Oh… I don’t think that’s a good idea. I don’t really know how to,” Yuta says, but his interest is betrayed by the way he gazes at the handle in Sicheng’s grip.

“It’s easy,” Sicheng says quietly, and holds Yuta’s hand. It’s only for a moment, just to exchange the handle, but his skin is electric. He closes Yuta’s grip for him and the kite bounces in the air for a moment before stabilizing.

“Oh, this isn’t so hard,” Yuta murmurs, enraptured at the kite. He moves his hands up and down, excitedly witnessing the way the kite responds in turn. Sicheng doesn’t let go either. He knows he should, but he doesn’t want to.

It’s to be expected when the kite begins to tangle. Yuta attempts to salvage the situation, twisting and rotating, but it’s ultimately pointless and Wentworth starts flapping in the wind.

“Wait, Yuta, stop moving, you’re just getting us more wrapped in the line,” Sicheng protests, and Yuta obeys. They stare down at their hands, currently hopelessly knotted with the kite string and Sicheng can’t contain his laughter, and when Yuta sees him laugh, he joins in.  

He doesn’t look up at the night sky anymore — he’s looking at Yuta, next to him, with such a sparkle in his eyes that there’s no need for stars anymore. The kite tangles, string twisting around their hands and fingers intertwine with his own.      

 

 𝚫

 

The single most annoying thing about Yuta isn’t that he always leaves the dishes in the sink, or that he sweats so much, or even that he’s ridiculously passionate about the most innocuous topics.

No, the single most annoying thing about Yuta is that he keeps trying to make Sicheng a better person. Not in a preachy way, not at all, Yuta has gone to church maybe once in the entire time than Sicheng has known him, and that was only because he wanted to find out if they gave out those cracker bread things for free. Yuta’s brand of evangelism was not religious in its nature.

It would never be a big deal, he’d never sit Sicheng down at a kitchen table and gaze tearfully into his eyes like it was an intervention. Rather Yuta would bring up the topic so casually that it might even pass by Sicheng undetected.  Yuta was less like a moral compass, more like a moral anchor, because a compass guides, and Yuta? Yuta sinks.

He sinks Sicheng back to reality when he starts drifting off into the abstract, where the rest of the world isn’t invited. And perhaps it’s for the best, because Sicheng does have to note that ever since he’s been with Yuta, he’s had more friends and genuinely better contact with the rest of the human race. 

  “Sicheng,” Yuta says, interrupting his tirade of this _amazing_ deal he just secured, even Kun is impressed, this is worth a fat bonus check, “You can ignore this, and I’m certain you will but I do feel the need to say something.”

“About?” Sicheng says, attempting not to sound too defensive but is already preparing a list of possible counterarguments. It’s a fairly simple investment that his company is handling, and Sicheng observed that in the next month, he’s expecting a spike in profits, and if that isn’t the _perfect_ time to sell and reap those benefits. 

Yuta breathes in, placing his chopsticks to the side of his bowl as he attempts to explain himself. “I just want to remind you something about your job… I know you work with numbers but please do remember — there are people behind those digits. Lives. Actual humans with families and kids and shitty summer vacations to Disneyland. By all means, do what you need to do, but do try and keep that in mind? Your actions affect many, many lives.”

And that’s all Yuta says, and then he picks up his chopsticks and continues eating, remarking that one of his students keeps threatening to dye his hair. And Sicheng doesn’t think he’ll ignore this, not entirely.

 

𝚫

 

“Kun,” Sicheng calls when he sees him get up from his desk, cup ramen in hand. He pauses and looks at Sicheng’s desk, and Sicheng begrudgingly wheels himself from the comfort of his computer.

Kun is his closest work colleague and by that Sicheng means that he’s one of the few he hasn’t made publically cry at sometime. He likes Kun, and for that reason, Sicheng doesn’t really want to get to know Kun too well, just in case he _stops_ liking Kun.

“Something wrong?” Kun asks. His smile is broad.

“Kinda, I just wanted to borrow a moment of your time to talk about the Rivers investment?” Sicheng says, and tilts his screen so it faces Kun. He takes a few step forwards and adjusts his glasses as he examines the graph.

“Yeah, your projections look great. We discussed that last week though,” Kun remarks.

“It’s not about the projections,” Sicheng says, feeling a little queasy. “I just wanted to know more about the investment.”

“Okay, what do you want to know?” Kun asks.

“What is it?”

Kun blinks. “It’s an investment.”

“An investment of _what_?”

“It’s stock,” Kun pauses. “Yeah, it’s stock.”

That was progress. “Stock of what?”

Their office is rather spacious, really, and as of present, the only witness to their conversation is the fake potted plant in the corner. Despite this, Sicheng’s voice is still softer, not wanting anyone else to hear.

“It’s an electronics company, if I’m not mistaken. Rivers is the rival CEO’s last name.”

“Is it a big company?”

At this, Kun laughs a little. “Not after next month, it won’t be. Not when we get this deal done.”

There’s the anchor. Sicheng can feel it drop. “I’m actually readjusting my proposal to Jongin. I’m suggesting a lower target. There’s no need to bankrupt this entire company.”

A wrinkle emerges on Kun’s face. “Why? Your proposal was flawless, we all agreed.”

Sicheng presses on. “It’s not needed. We’re way above our profit margins on this deal. If we keep them sustainable, we can have them as a permanent client in the future. I think it’s worth considering.” And then, because Sicheng can’t seem to stop himself: “It would mean less job loss, as well.”

Kun nods thoughtfully. “You’re right about that. Well, you’ve done your homework, as always. If you propose this to Jongin on Friday, I’ll support you, you know I always will. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve been craving these noodles since breakfast.”

Kun stops by his desk to pull out a fork and hesitates before he turns the door to leave the office. “I must say, Sicheng, I never really expected you to care about those kind of things.”

 Sicheng shrugs.

 

𝚫

 

It’s one of the rare Sunday mornings where Doyoung hadn’t slept over, and Yuta’s in the kitchen, barefeet padding against the tiles. And Sicheng really shouldn’t ask, because for the fiftieth time, it’s not his business. But curiosity is supposed to be the most important trait among humans, worthy enough to name a little robot on Mars over it, so why not?

“So,” Sicheng says, “You’re hooking up with Doyoung, again?”

Yuta pauses. “Sorry, were we too loud? I keep trying to get him to use the ball gag but he’s so against it after the last incident. I do apologize, I’ll keep it down next time.”

“Oh, that’s not it at all,” Sicheng says quickly, and then regrets it because to be fair, it would be nice if they kept it down next time. Doyoung’s stream of high-pitched profanity was perhaps entertaining, but there was something about hearing Yuta’s moans of pleasure that just settled uncomfortably in Sicheng’s gut, and even more uncomfortably lower down. “I just thought you were sort of… over him?”

“Well, I can’t be over him if I never liked him,” Yuta points out, sliding next to Sicheng, holding out the spoon of his yogurt. “It’s nothing deep or intimate — think of it like Grindr but less of a chance that he’s into feet and or murders me when he comes over.”

Yes, it was perhaps a good idea that Yuta uninstalled Grindr. There had been too many terrifying moments of Sicheng looking up to seeing a piece of sentient meat in the hallway that introduces itself as being named Furnace, and says “it’s French”. It wasn’t. Sicheng checked.

“I just know you stopped seeing him,” Sicheng shrugs. “During the school term, anyway.”

There’s a hint of blush in Yuta’s cheeks. “I don’t know how to put this is any other way.” He looks down at the counter. “It’s not that I have any affection for him but we suit each other. Like in the bedroom. I’m sure you know that my interests span an… interesting range of disciplines.”

Sicheng almost chokes on his water. “Mmm.”

“It’s just convenient,” Yuta confesses. “We both know what we like, and sometimes it’s nice to just unwind with someone who actually asks to be bossed around.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Sicheng says, nodding like he empathizes. He really doesn’t.

He’s always known Yuta to be ‘kinky’, sort of but perhaps that’s the wrong word. Sicheng just knows that Yuta is a man who is very much aware of what he wants and where he wants it and what brand of wax he wants drizzled over him. It’s just startling to hear it so clear from his own mouth.

“Does he bother you?” Yuta asks, suddenly. “If he does, let me know and I’ll tell him to fuck off and never come back.”

“God, no, that’s not necessary,” Sicheng says, but can’t deny that he feels flattered enough that Yuta would kick out his favourite sex companion just based on his roommate’s opinion.

“I mean, anyway, it’s probably over now,” Yuta shrugs. “Won’t have to worry about him much longer.”

Sicheng’s eyes widen. “Is it terminal?”

“What?” Yuta splutters, spoon toppling to the counter. “God, no, he’s not sick or anything. I’m just going back to work after this weekend. Summer vacation’s almost over, and staff has to arrive earlier for training and meeting and other time-wasting activities.”

A pit opens up inside of Sicheng’s stomach. “Oh. Oh I hadn’t realized time passed that quickly.”

“Well, we had a lot of fun together, that’s probably why,” Yuta says gently. “I mean, all those days just lazily watching TV together, going out to those restaurants you kept recommending, jogging together… it’s been a lovely summer. There’s no one else I’d have rather spent it with.” Yuta nudges Sicheng’s side, and he’s smiling so broadly and so sincerely, it hurts to look at him.

“I won’t see you that much anymore,” Sicheng says in a very quiet tone.

“Yeah,” Yuta’s grin fades. “But I mean, I’ll always be here on the weekends, like it used to be. I’ll miss you, though.” His hand extends out and ruffles the strands of Sicheng’s blonde hair. “I’m sure you’re looking forward to the break from me,” he jokes.

“No. I like having you around,” Sicheng says, more bluntly than he intended.

Yuta’s face softens. “I like being around you too. Come on, don’t look so sad. You’re still my roommate, even if it’s only like two days of the week.” He buries his face into the crook of Sicheng’s neck, and it’s such a normal thing to do, but Sicheng’s heart races.

It’s been difficult having Yuta around him. It’s going to be more difficult having Yuta away from him.

 

𝚫

 

The glow of graduation hangs overhead like one of the neon lamps in the club. It casts a most precarious glow, illuminating the faces of everyone around him such that they don’t even look human anymore, just amalgamations of blues, purples and reds. Aliens from a different planet all uniting under the same bassline.

There’s a distinct buzz in Sicheng’s veins, but a muted sort, like turning the television down but not off. It’s come from his drinks, spaced apart, but intoxicating nonetheless. He’s aware of Taeyong dancing with a much older man, his hands gripping on his hips, and he’s smiling so broadly that it’s impossible for Sicheng not to replicate with a resigned grin of his own. It’s not like the other breakups that Sicheng has seen Taeyong gone through. He doesn’t seem to be sad at all, certainly not in the arms of this handsome gentleman currently leaning down to whisper something in his ear that has Taeyong giggling in reply.

Sicheng pulls out his phone, and texts Taeyong to get home safe, and then texts some of the others to keep an eye on him. He finishes the last of his drink and hops off the stool, not even bothering to interrupt Taeyong with a goodbye when he all but walks into someone who blurs out from the shadows.

“Do you want me to walk you home?” Yuta asks, because it is Yuta, Sicheng would recognize him instantly, even under the colourful glow of the club. It’s not even necessarily because they’ve spent a lot of time with each other, barely any since the break-up but the thing about Yuta is that he’s so individualistic, so unique in his own right that it’s difficult to get confused.

It reminds Sicheng of like and unlike terms. All the ‘ _a_ ’s of the world can get lumped together, all three hundred of them until it’s 300a, but when it’s someone like Yuta, he can’t even be compared to an expression like ‘a’, he’s something entirely different.

“I don’t need you to walk me home, the dorms are just a few roads away,” Sicheng says, shoving his hands in his pockets. He’s going to need to pack soon, the dormitories officially close in two weeks. Then it’s finding a place for the summer until his Masters program starts up, but that shouldn’t be too difficult, he has several options — though he won’t deny, going back home is the least favourable of all of those.

“You don’t need me to,” Yuta agrees, “but it might be nice, anyway.”

There’s probably something slightly awkward about walking home with Taeyong’s ex-boyfriend, but it doesn’t appear like he’s in any sort of emotional distress, not from the way he’s being so thoroughly kissed against the balcony right now.

“Alright,” Sicheng says, because it is cold out this time of night, and he’s statistically less likely to be mugged if he has someone with him, and Yuta seems like that kind of fellow to break someone’s arm if attacked. It’s already been nearly three months since he and Taeyong broke up. His nose is already healed. It isn't weird.

And it’s cold outside, absolutely so once removed from the crushing sweat and heat of the club. Sicheng crosses his arms, shivering.

“You’re not even wearing a jacket, aren’t you freezing?” Sicheng grumbles and Yuta laughs, running his hands over his emerald T-shirt.

“I run hot like, all the time,” he says and puts his hand next to Sicheng’s cheek. It burns. “See?”

“Yeah, yeah, I see,” Sicheng says, swatting the hand away. He _is_ warm, unfairly so, and if Sicheng drifts closer to him, it’s only because of how damn cold he’s getting. Nights in this part of town have temperatures plummeting.

Yuta is telling him an extended story of what happened to one of his friends in the club earlier, how he faked his way into the VIP section and almost made out with someone who claimed to be a movie star, until moments before their lips connected they both realized they knew each other, and had both actually forged their way in. It’s amusing, slightly, but Yuta is a good storyteller, his hand gestures choreographing the entire event, his voice animated.

“Left here,” Sicheng says abruptly, realizing that they’ve just been walking with no direction for so long, and they did actually have a destination in mind. “And then right at the end of the road.”

Yuta nods, taking the turn. “What are your plans for the summer?”

“Still figuring some things out. I can keep working at my university, but the dorms close down, and I’ll need to find somewhere to live in the interim.”

Yuta’s face scrunches in mirth and Sicheng raises an eyebrow. “Something amusing?” he says.

“I don’t know many people who just use the word ‘interim’ in casual conversation, is all,” Yuta says. “I like it though.”

An eyeroll is the only response Sicheng is willing to give. The street is almost silent, if not for their footsteps and conversation — and even then, it’s only the lampposts that are witness to it at all.

“You need somewhere to live? I might have something to help with that,” Yuta says after a moment. Almost as if he had been preparing to say it for the past few minutes. “I stay a neighbourhood over, it’s near the subway and everything. My roommate is graduating the same time as you, and he’s not doing any further studies, he’s going back home. So, there’s a room open. You know, if you want it?”

Sicheng isn’t sure what he’s supposed to say.

“It’s nothing special,” Yuta says, immediately filling the silence. “But it’s got the things you need. Electricity. Water. A PS4. A pool noodle. No pool, but the noodle is fun. The rent is pretty reasonable too. And I’m a fairly good roommate myself, I think, I’ll stay out of your way if you want me to.”

It’s the alcohol. That’s the explanation. That’s why Sicheng’s bones don’t feel right, that’s why there’s a strange sensation in his chest. Alcohol lowers inhibitions, this is a fact, and this is all side effects of those too many drinks.

“I’ll think about it,” Sicheng says. “Can’t have you commit a house to me while we’re both drunk, that’ll just be cruel.”

“I’m being serious,” Yuta insists, tugging on Sicheng’s sleeve. “But fine, fine, you don’t have to give me an answer now. Just let me know whenever you make up your mind. The offer’s always there. Who knows? You might like living with me.”

“It’s the building on the corner,” Sicheng says, pointing ahead. It’s far too early to already be giving directions, but he doesn’t know what else to say, nothing more to say to Yuta’s kindness.

“Ah, cool, almost home then,” Yuta remarks. “Tonight was really fun. I liked it.”

“I didn’t expect you’d be there,” Sicheng says, perhaps more blunt than he intended to. “You know, what with Taeyong.”

Sicheng has become so accustomed to the messy relationships so indicative of university life, that he expects some kind of exaggerated reaction on Yuta’s part at the mere mention of Taeyong’s name. But he just shrugs, like it’s the most casual thing in the world.

“It was amicable. We weren’t really serious to begin with,” Yuta says. “It’s chill like that.”

That much was certain. He checks his phone and sees no messages from Taeyong, but wasn’t expecting any, not with how busy his hands and mouth appeared to be.

“You study maths, right? I remember asking Taeyong about it but he couldn’t explain it properly to me,” Yuta says.

Sicheng raises an eyebrow. He’s been through this particular charade many times before. “That’s correct. Are you going to tell me it’s boring?”

“No, no, not at all,” Yuta says quickly, shaking his head. “No, I think it’s so fucking cool. Maths is such a complex subject but it’s in everything, isn’t it? Like, I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, because I probably am, but numbers make up the world. Everything is interconnected and has a relationship that can be explained using equations and stuff? And you study that? That’s amazing.”

Sicheng generally gets two set responses from people when he explains his degree. The first is confusion, from people like Taeyong, who support him theoretically, but also have literally no idea what he actually does and thinks the Cartesian plane is at airports. And the second is contempt, from people who hated the subject in school, who constantly struggled and battled against it and emerged from it with deep-searing wounds, who wonder aloud how anyone could willingly study something so awful.

And then there’s Yuta, speaking in his own authentic way, gushing about how fascinating he finds the very concept. His ignorance is clear, when he starts talking about Pi and Pythagoras, but that’s to be expected, he didn’t spend the three years that Sicheng just did. But Yuta finds it interesting, he finds Sicheng interesting.

“I don’t know, I probably made no sense,” Yuta says, sheepishly. “I’m not really good at that kind of stuff, but I admire people who are.”

“Everyone should admire me, I’m certainly worthy of it,” Sicheng says, kind of numbly, because it’s the default response he’d have to such a compliment. He doesn’t want to acknowledge the sincerity behind it. They’re walking up to his dorm now, and perhaps it’s the drinks he had that makes his steps seem unsteady.

“You are,” Yuta states. “And I do.”

He pulls out his dorm key from his pocket, and the Starfleet keychain jingles against the rest. “This is me,” Sicheng says.

Yuta nods. “I hope you sleep well.” He sounds like he actually cares that Sicheng sleeps well, like it’s more than just smalltalk.

This has to stop. Sicheng can see where this is going, and it’s best if it ends sooner rather than later. He’s heard things about Yuta’s reputation of course, and he knows full well the meeting circumstances of how Taeyong came to knew him. There’s no point in dragging things out. Best to just set him straight, he probably won’t even mind, won’t even be hurt.

“Yuta, I’m not a hookup person. Just keep that in mind. Nothing’s going to happen here,” Sicheng says. No point is dressing the words up in a pretty skirt, the truth is what needs to be communicated.

“I wasn’t trying to,” Yuta says, blinking in shock. “I wasn’t expecting anything at all. I wanted to walk you here because it was dark outside and I didn’t want anything to happen to you. I wanted to know that you got home safe.”

Sicheng’s throat is dry. He inserts the key but doesn’t open the door. Breathing into the wood, he says: “So, you had no expectations? You have no interest in me?”

A pause. “I didn’t say that.”

As expected. Sicheng wasn’t usually wrong. “Right. That’s what I figured. So, let me guess, you just want to make out with me?” He turns around. He’s rejected people before. It’s not usually this hard. He usually doesn’t feel this strange inside.

Yuta’s looking at him so carefully. His eyes are a piercing brown and they seem to be searching for something in Sicheng’s expression with laser precision. There’s an intensity in his gaze that Sicheng doesn’t even think he can begin to comprehend.

“I mean, I would. I want to. But no,” Yuta says, and Sicheng is beginning to understand that Yuta is just so honest all the time that it might hurt to be around him for too long. “I don’t just want that.”

“Then what do you want?” Sicheng is meant to sound like he’s barking out an order, like he’s beyond all of this. It’s not. It sounds like he’s lost in the woods, calling for help.

“I want to pick you up at seven in my fanciest shirt, and I’ll even probably buy flowers on the way but ditch them in a bush before I even make it to your room because I realized it was probably an awful idea to begin with. I want to take you out to dinner and a movie and fight over the bill for you for both of those because I know you’d insist on paying for what you ordered, but I’m a traditional kind of guy, and when you turn your back I’m just gonna give my card to the waiter and tell him to charge me everything. I want to walk with you in the park and have you explain to me how the fuck gravity even works because I saw a Neil DeGrasse Tyson Youtube video and I still don’t think I understand it. And then I want to take you to your door and kiss you on the cheek and when I get home, I’d text you goodnight as well.”

“Gravity is a force,” Sicheng says.

“Gravity is a force,” Yuta repeats, enunciating each syllable.

“It’s a force exerted by a planet that draws objects towards its center.” Sicheng’s mouth is dry. “It’s how the Earth spins. Because gravity keeps all of the planets in orbit around the Sun.”

“That’s pretty fucking cool,” Yuta whistles. His smile is sort of cracked. “Sicheng, do you have anything to say about… any of that?”

“Yeah,” Sicheng says. “That’s what gravity is.” His heart is hammering so fast against his chest it might just burst. Sicheng is not often wrong, but perhaps he is this time, and he doesn’t know what to do when he’s so thoroughly blindsided. But he’s learnt that from school, when he’s sitting in an exam, and the problem in front of his is entirely indecipherable, you start with what you know.

And what Sicheng knows is gravity. He knows that anything that has mass has gravity, and the heavier something is, the more gravity it has. Gravity also gets weaker with distance, which means that the closer objects are to each other, the stronger their gravitational pull is. And Yuta is standing very, very close to him.

He smells vaguely of spilled vodka, and a little of peach chapstick. Despite that, his lips are still chapped. He should really do something about that. He’s still staring at Sicheng.

“I’m not a relationship person,” Sicheng says, and that’s one of those unarguable truths, so why does it feel so damning to say it out loud? “I’m not good at them. Not at all. I don’t do them.”

“I don’t mind if you need time,” Yuta starts to say, in a very considerate way.

“Yuta, I don’t want to go out with you.” Sicheng has always been blunt. It’s his personality at this point, and he knows that people have grown to hate him for it, but he’s not about to apologize for just saying what needs to be said, and not affixing a bow to it. “Ever. It’s not a question of time.”

“Oh,” Yuta says.

“I’m not interested,” Sicheng says, and he thought saying this would offer some relief to the feeling in his chest but it just makes it worse. It’s fine. This is fine, Yuta won’t even care.

Except, it looks like he does care. In fact, it looks like he cares so much, it’s hurting him from the inside, cracking up his insides.

“Oh,” Yuta says again. Perhaps this is what it looks like when someone’s heart breaks. “That’s alright.” It doesn’t seem alright.

“I understand if you want to rescind your offer of the room,” Sicheng says, turning the key in the lock, just to give him an excuse not to look at him for a moment.

“No, I still mean it. You need a place to stay, after all, and you’ll be overcharged anywhere else,” Yuta says, and his voice sounds clipped, like he’s holding back the wings of the rest of his words. “It’s fine, really.”   

  The world doesn’t feel right. The gravity of an object depends on its mass and right now, Sicheng feels like his bones are weighted with lead. That’s the explanation for why he feels so strange, why he feels like his skin isn’t his own. What he can’t figure out is why exactly he’s so heavy to begin with, why looking at Yuta right now seems so difficult.

“I didn’t really expect this,” Sicheng says, and isn’t even sure what he’s referring to. Everything.

“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine,” Yuta says, and his smile is a little too wide to be natural. “It’s late, though. I should be getting back. Joshua always gets annoyed with me if I wake him up when I come home.”

“Yeah,” Sicheng breathes out. “Do you need me to call a cab?”

“I like jogging, it’s not an issue for me.”

There’s a chill in the air and Sicheng almost wants to retract everything he said. Maybe he didn’t mean it. Maybe he just said what he always does and didn’t think about it enough. Maybe he should have just given Yuta a chance—

It’s too late. He’s said what he said, and Yuta is currently about to leave.

“Text me about whether you want the room,” Yuta nods. “And sleep well. Don’t forget to drink some water or you’ll have a bad hangover tomorrow.”

Gravity gets weaker with distance. That’s why Sicheng doesn’t understand that even as Yuta walks down the stairs, walks out of the building and out onto the street, he feels the pull stronger than ever.   

 

The thing about human memory is that it’s flawed. That was three years ago. That’s one thousand and ninety six days. A leap year too, of course. That was three years, and yet the memory has embedded itself into Sicheng’s mind like a scar on his brain tissue. He remembers everything about that night, from the faded emerald of Yuta’s T-shirt, to way Taeyong had smiled when that man first asked him to dance. And he remembers Yuta’s face, most of all, the way he looked when Sicheng crushed his heart.

He remembers it so, so vividly. For a while, they didn’t speak to each other, not properly, even when Sicheng moved in. Yuta was still as happy as always, but his smile never reached the corner of his eyes, and he never touched Sicheng, not again, not until months later after he started dating this girl he met at the gym, and then things seemed to be alright again. Better than alright. Living with Yuta was kind of great, as he discovered.

And when the summer ended, Yuta mentioned moving, and he just assumed Sicheng would come with too — which was for the best, because Sicheng assumed he’d be coming with as well.

But he remembers the way Yuta looked, and it’s for that reason alone, that Sicheng will never tell Yuta how he feels right now. Because it was true. He’s not good at relationships, and he isn’t going to break Yuta’s heart twice in his life, especially not now, especially now that he knows how tender it is.

One day he’ll grow out of love with Yuta, he’s certain. He just has to figure out when.

 

𝚫

 

            Years from now, archaeologists will uncover the remnants of this apartment. Under the merciless sun, sweat will coat their brow as they dig their pickaxes into the rubble, dust scattering the poison air. They are dedicated, endlessly searching for some sort of sign that at one point in the history of this tortured planet, there was _life_ and there was life _here_. And after many have given up, and even more have fallen, the last remaining archaeologist will see it, there, hidden like a secret, buried under centuries and centuries of sedimentation, and they will know that the person who lived here must have been some sort of God.

It’s the only explanation Sicheng can rationalize as to why Yuta still willingly _pays_ for cable in this day and age: because when the world is destroyed and future generations dig in the dirt for signs of life, they’ll see the receiver and assume that he must have been some kind of god.

Technically, apparently, _allegedly_ there is a reason. Yuta watches Sports with a capital ‘S’, and in order to watch these Sports, he requires cable or something, and sees it as a worthy expense in shelling out the necessary funds to ensure he gets his consistent supply. Sicheng would have preferred if Yuta had told him he was in a cult.  

 “You work as a soccer coach, I just can’t fathom this, why would you want to come home from a week of playing soccer to watch more soccer?” Sicheng had asked, desperate to find some sort of logic in all of this.

Yuta shrugged, and cracked open his Gatorade. “I don’t get back-sweat when I watch Real play.”

Which is fair, he supposes. He’s seen the back-sweat. It isn’t pretty.

 

So, cable is a thing in their apartment, and it’s a thing that Sicheng never uses. He wouldn’t say that he’s afraid of it, of course not, but it is a little intimidating. Too many channels in his opinion, and no recommendations, unlike his finely tuned Netflix. But it’s a Thursday evening and the slowest of all days at work, and there’s just not much else to do besides flop onto the sofa and wait for himself to sink into the cushions.

He vaguely remembers Yuta once told him the channel number for National Geographic but this is also cable, and they apparently swap around the digits just for fun, like some sort of sick sociopath. So 127 does not give him National Geographic, it gives him some spinoff channel of MTV that’s so psychologically disturbing that he immediately flips to other channels, tapping random numbers.

He goes past many different programs, a few sports, some fashion, an episode of Ghost Adventures and he’d almost give up and just turn off the TV and roll into bed, when he sees a woman with breasts so big, Sicheng wonders if there’s a GoFundMe for her reduction surgery.

She’s wearing a sheer halter top that does little to hide her form, and her voice is shrill and high as she giggles.

“ _Oh Charlie, you’re so strong_ ,” she says and bites her lip with far more force than necessary. Some of her pastel pink lipstick smudges on her teeth. The camera pans to a shirtless man surrounded by a rosebush, currently holding garden shears in a very dangerous and unsafe manner.

“ _You haven’t even seen what I’m really capable of_ , _Jennifer,_ ” Charlie says, growling in a way that maybe could be considered sexy in a very abstract way. Sicheng can’t help but wonder why Charlie is gardening shirtless to begin with. He’ll get sunburnt, and not to mention incredibly dirty, and that’s perhaps the biggest turnoff of all. 

“ _You could show me, you know? My husband won’t be home for ages and I’ve seen what you do to the roses_. _Maybe you could deflower me next._ ”

It takes him longer than he’s proud of to realize that he’s watching porn. He had an inkling, of course. The terrible lighting, the zoomed in camera angles, the bazongas on ‘Jennifer’, the blatant disregard for safety when handling dangerous equipment? This is porn. And to be specific, this is heterosexual porn, and on _television_. What about the children?

 _“You’re a saucy little slut, aren’t you Jennifer?”_ Charlie’s voice sounds like he gargles glass for fun. Sicheng can’t imagine any words that are less attractive.

He becomes aware of a banner in the corner of the screen, informing him that the preview ends in two minutes and sixteen seconds, and if he’d like to watch the full movie, all it requires is _an easy and quick credit payment, only two clicks guaranteed_! Sicheng’s brow furrows as he considers this arrangement of pay-per-view porn — and he realizes he’s missed a very important plot point because suddenly Jennifer is pulling Charlie’s hands to her volumptous breasts.

_“You like these melons? I grew them myself.”_

The preview ends when they start kissing in the most sloppy and dirty way possible, tongue everywhere, Charlie’s massive meaty paws reaching up behind Jennifer’s back. Their tongues are pressed together like they’re trying to eat each other alive. His TV provides him with a cheerful notification informing him that if he’d like to continue, all he has to do is press a button on his remote.

There’s a strange feeling uncurling in Sicheng’s gut, and that feeling may distantly be described as an erection, even if it wasn’t so foreign to him. He doesn’t watch porn. That’s because he’s an individual of discerning taste, and such taste doesn’t extend to poorly shot films with more cumshots than cinematography. He isn’t really one for masturbation either, finding that it’s far too much effort, too much time wasted and just _messy_. The last time he had a libido was when electricity was invented. He wouldn’t say he’s particularly interested in this particular movie either, Jennifer looks so plastic that she might melt when put close to a flame, and Charlie is so unlike any kind of man Sicheng would ever even look at. Too much hair, an overly thick beard, he reasons, it looks worrying, like he’s a rung above the rest in the evolutionary ladder.

But there’s something to be said about watching the way they were kissing, with such practised performance. He wouldn’t call it _arousing_ but it’s not… not arousing. He presses the remote before he thinks too long about it, and thankfully the credit card details were already pre-filled in. If he had to stand up and fetch his card, he may have had second thoughts.

The last time Sicheng watched heterosexual porn was in high school, at a sleepover, and he isn’t sure whether to be horrified or impressed that the standards are basically the same some ten years later. Charlie and Jennifer saunter to Jennifer’s marital bed, steadily losing layers of clothing along the way. They make out like they’re being paid to do it — which is accurate, if nothing else. Jennifer is a screamer, disturbing the neighbours as Charlie’s Christmas ham of a hand snakes up her thigh. In contrast, every single one of Charlie’s moans are so low and guttural that it’s hard to find them particularly enticing either but Sicheng is already halfhard, and he already paid for it, so he might as _well_.

Much like the porn itself, his movements are clumsy, not rehearsed properly, and probably should not be viewed by anyone ever — but does the job alright. He strokes himself, focusing on the screen rather than his own actions. Honestly, he can’t say that he’s interested in the way the way Charlie’s disembodied torso is pile-driving it into Jennifer. But there’s something to be said about the inherent attractiveness of human sexuality.

Sicheng realizes he sounds somewhat like a hormonal teenager, but in his defense, that might be the best way to describe how he’s been feeling around Yuta lately. He’s always known Yuta was attractive. Obviously so, he has eyes, and said eyes have seen Yuta shirtless and wet, his muscles rippling effortlessly. It’s been a very distant sort of admiration, though, like the way he’d look at Monet.

Now, it’s less like looking at a Monet, because Sicheng has never wanted to fuck a painting. Yuta, on the other hand…

No. It’s ridiculous. He won’t even acknowledge the thought.

It’s nothing major. Nothing worth thinking about. He’s been back at work for about two weeks, and Sicheng is just having trouble adjusting to the lack of ‘eye candy’ around the apartment so to speak. It’s been a learning experience, really— Sicheng is has developed a new appreciation for Yuta’s pornographic yawns in the morning, but that’s as far as it goes. He’ll get over this. He always does.

Still, all these feelings had to be repressed _somewhere_ so he doesn’t begrudge his body’s own reaction to the gardening adventures of Charlie and Jennifer, his breath stuttering against the stroking of his hand. Truthfully, it’s very hard to find Charlie attractive at all, he can’t understand why they matched someone like Jennifer with him. Jennifer might be a good enough actress to seem interested in Charlie, and fair enough, he may be a better gardener, but he surely can’t compare to Yuta.

If it was with Yuta, it would be different.

Yuta would be rougher, surely, but wouldn’t that just make it so much better? It would be an edge, the kind that makes toes curl and heart rate rise. He’s so tanned and luminous, it must be so nice to touch, to hold, to caress. And their kisses onscreen are so overdramatic, there must be so little actual enjoyment to be derived from it, and with Yuta, it would be different, Sicheng is sure of it. It would be intense but gorgeous, pleasurable. Kissing him would be everything.

Just that image alone, to the background of the gardener cuckolding his boss’s wife, is enough to drive Sicheng over the edge and he had the foresight to grab a tissue at first, before he scrapes his own dried cum off the TV screen. He breathes out heavily, his heart racing and stares as Jennifer finishes her second orgasm at roughly the same time.

He wasn’t really thinking of Yuta. This was merely stress relief.

Sicheng doesn’t bother watching the rest, not invested nearly enough in the storyline to see if Jennifer’s husband comes home, and switches off the television and drags himself into a hot shower, with plans of an early night.

He doesn’t think anymore of it. Why should he? It had nothing to do with Yuta, nothing at all.

 

𝚫

 

Yuta is biting his lip, the way he does when he’s stressed. Not proper stressed, no, when he’s genuinely in emotional turmoil he’s active. He takes a run around the block, and if it’s raining, he starts pacing around the couch like he’s trying to get his FitBit step-count in for the day.

When he bites his lip, it’s more when he’s stressed about something that’s _awkward_. It’s like when the pizza delivery guy has toilet paper hanging out of his pants — it’s uncomfortable for both parties, but Yuta, naturally empathetic, is suffering twice the amount needed.

He is scrolling on his phone, and pointedly gazing at the TV. Sicheng observes this as he sips on his coffee, the aroma waking him up in this Saturday morning air.

“Something wrong?” Sicheng asks, after Yuta’s lip begins to look like a toddler that’s been teething.

“Nah, not at all,” Yuta lies, reaching for his wallet. He opens up the half-broken excuse of leather and flips through until he finds all his cards, and takes them all out, counting each of them, from his school ID to an expired Target gift card. He lingers on his credit card, and then looks up at Sicheng. And bites his lip even harder.

“Just say it,” Sicheng sighs. “What’s wrong?”

“Did anyone break into the apartment?”

Sicheng stares. “… No? Should they have? Were you expecting a robbery? Was this like a service you had hired?” Could this be another kink of sorts?

“No, no of course not,” Yuta is quick to add, brow furrowing. He stares back at his phone screen. “What about friends? Has Taeyong or someone been around?”

“Yuta, you know I hate most social events, why would I willingly invite someone into my home? God, what if they visit me all the time?” He’s just not being himself today.

“So, no friends who were chilling? It’s just been you? No one… borrowed the TV?”

The TV, currently mounted to the wall, would nod if it could, but it couldn’t, because it was mounted to the fucking wall.

“Yuta, what is this about?” Sicheng sips.

“I don’t mean to intrude,” Yuta begins, “But, uh, did you pay to watch something called _Beating around the Bush_ on my credit card?”

Sicheng’s surprised he doesn’t drop the coffee cup and assumes the only reason why he didn’t was because time has frozen. He contemplates lying, but doesn’t think that’s even an option. He’s already ruled out the option of friends _and_ thieves who break in just to watch porn. And all that’s left is the truth.

“Yes, that would be correct,” Sicheng says, imitating the blankness of a white page.

Yuta’s eyes widen. “Oh?” His voice is considerably higher.

“That was me,” Sicheng presses on. “Let me know how much it was and I’ll refund you. My mistake, I didn’t realize it would charge to your card — how foolish of me, now that I think about it.”

Yuta looks a lot like what Sicheng’s younger sister looked like when he told her that Santa wasn’t real, and if he was, he’d be arrested for trespassing. Still, Sicheng holds his head high and pretends like this is a normal occurrence.    

“It was you?” Yuta says, and his voice cracks a little on the last word. “You watched…” he looks back down at his phone to double check, “You watched _Beating around the Bush_ on the 16th?”

“Yes.”

Yuta gazes down at the same credit card statement he’s been reading for ten minutes as if expecting the words to change. He finally switches his screen off and gazes at Sicheng with trepidation. He wets his lips several times before speaking and it’s so annoying, Sicheng is tempted to just dig out into his pocket and give him the necessary coins for a tube of chapstick.

“With a title like that,” Yuta hesitates, “I’d almost think it was an adult movie.”

An ‘ _adult movie_ ’? “Schindler’s List was an adult movie. Yuta, that was porn. We both know it was porn.”

Yuta cringes. “Okay. Fine. Yes, it’s porn. I Googled the title and I just…”

“Yuta, just bite the bullet and say it,” Sicheng says, and he sounds very brave considering he’s about two seconds away from toppling his coffee cup to the floor.

“Why did you pay to watch heterosexual porn?”

Sicheng downs the rest of the cup in an instant and the 100 degree bean water burns his trachea, but not enough to render him incapable of speech, so it’s ultimately useless. “That’s…” he pauses. “That’s a very private question, Yuta.”

Yuta winches again. “I’m not trying to shame you at all, definitely not, you know this is a judgement-free zone, obviously, but…” This seems to be causing him actual physical pain. It seems like he might die from this, that the stress will cause his heart just to erupt. “Sicheng, you’re gay right?”

“You sound like my mother every time I call home. And I’ll tell you the same thing I told her, yes I’m still gay and no, it wasn’t because I watched Grease as a teenager.”

Yuta’s hands ball into fists, and then he exhales, and then unlenches them. “Sicheng, if you’re uncomfortable, we can drop it here. But I’m just struggling to understand. If you don’t like women in that way, what do you have to gain from watching straight porn?”

Sicheng has no answer to this, and thankfully, Yuta doesn’t seem to expect one.

“It just baffles me.” And then he rolls his eyes. “It’s so badly done as well. You’re the kind of person who goes to the expensive malls to watch movies in foreign languages, I can’t foresee you being interested in the cinematography of _Beating around the Bush_.”

These are all highly reasonable points. Sicheng doesn’t like being on the irrational side of an argument for once, but he’s stuck with this now..

“Aren’t you the one who always says it’s fine as long as it gets your rocks off?” Sicheng shoots back and Yuta blinks. It’s been quite a common saying of Yuta’s over the past few years.

“I never imagined your voice saying those words, give me a moment.” He looks back up. “Nope, still not sure if this is actually happening.”

Sicheng purses his lips and opens the faucet. He aggressively soaps up the cup and washes it, his back facing to Yuta. “I don’t see why this is still an issue. I said I’d pay you back. What more is there for you to say?”

“I could help you.”

This time, Sicheng does drop the mug. It doesn’t break, the distance is too short for that, but it makes a loud clang against the metal of the sink. Is Yuta suggesting—, no that would be insane—, then again he was single—, but he doesn’t think of Sicheng in that way—, but maybe it’s just about the sex—, he probably didn’t—, unless he did—, that’s the—

Sicheng turns around, and tries not to look like he’s just had a thousand different thoughts in a single second. “Sorry?”

Yuta seems to rethink his own words. “I mean, like if you want a recommendation, I can help out. You don’t need to _pay_ for porn.” He spits out the word.

“You want to recommend me porn?” Sicheng clarifies. Somehow this is both better and worse than his initial suggestion.

“It’s not like it’s weird, me and Ten do it all the time,” Yuta frowns. “Look, you don’t have to watch it, or whatever, but you can’t seriously be spending actual money on stuff you can get for free on the internet.”

Sicheng doesn’t know how to process the information that Yuta and Ten exchange porn. It’s a lot to handle. So he decides to just nod. “Fine.”

“Okay. Cool.” Tension visibly leaves Yuta’s shoulders and Sicheng turns around and goes back to washing his coffee mug out. He places it in the drying rack when Yuta pipes up again.

“What was the movie about though, actually, like I assume gardening from the title but I’m curious about the plot, like were there any kinks—”

“No.”

 

𝚫

 

The links arrive in an email of all things, titled “ _The Good Stuff 💦”_ and Sicheng has to frantically send Yuta a text that says to refrain from sending him porn at his work email address. Yuta responds relatively quickly, and apologies, and Sicheng supposes he’ll just have to hope that if Jongin ever checks their emails, he doesn’t look too closely (or that he’s into the same things Yuta is).

Sicheng doesn’t really think much of it, resolving to never masturbate ever again. His initial opinions were correct, it was just far too much effort for such little reward. But, he’s also incredibly curious about what Yuta could recommend him, considering that after years of living together, Yuta has little to no idea what Sicheng even likes. Yuta, with his colour-coded chart of kinks, probably thinks of Sicheng as some sort of sexless skyscraper.

 So Sicheng opens the first link, and the website lists that it’s an equitable opportunities company and that all performers are voluntary and all that jazz, and Sicheng ignores it all while he waits for the video to load. In the corner is a banner listing the actors in the company. It seems that Yuta favours one of the actors in particular, Sicheng recognizes his name, as he features in most of the links he’s sent. Sicheng doesn’t really know what to do with this information, but it seems worth noting.

This video noticeably, does not having a storyline, and Sicheng is mildly relieved at not having to sit through inappropriate and unsafe gardening again. Rather, it starts with two men, a brunette and a blonde sitting on a bed, the brunette frantically kissing the man underneath him like he’s been starving.

The blonde leaves scratches all over the male’s back to which the male foregoes making a quip about cats and instead just moans, and Sicheng supposes this is already better than Jennifer and Charlie, less awful dialogue. There’s a twinge of arousal in Sicheng’s jeans, but he doesn’t yet pull down his zipper. This is contrary to what happens in the video, where the brunette pulls down the blonde’s pants, and literally has his lips around his dick when Sicheng slams the pause button.

And it’s got nothing to do with the blowjob — and everything to do with the fact that the receiver looks exactly like Sicheng.

On a close-up shot like this, the similarities are uncanny. The same sharp nose, the same dark eyes, and the hair? It has to be the same salon to attain that level of bleached blonde, identical to Sicheng’s own. For a moment, Sicheng mentally analyzes his entire life, trying to figure out if he’s ever accidentally recorded a sextape in the brief times he has actually had sex, but no, no he hasn’t, he’s pretty sure about that. He fast-forwards the video a few more seconds, inspecting his doppelganger more closely, and then hits pause when he finds a difference: this one has a tattoo of a dragon on his thigh.

Definitely not him. 

Sicheng hits play again, and he feels a little more at ease because this clone definitely doesn’t _sound_ like him. Sicheng would be caught dead before he moans with such abandon, please, there are _neighbours_. It’s still… weird, though. The resemblance is too much.

Sicheng can’t watch it any further. It’s too odd. Doesn’t feel right. He can’t watch himself about to get fucked, it’s too strange, too Freudian. Might give him certain psychological issues he’d never recover from. Yuta was right, this was better than what he watched on TV, and he certainly appreciates the sentiment, but there’s no way he can finish this video. He almost switches off the computer when he remembers that one of these two actors are Yuta’s favourite, and this is the most basic form of probability, there’s literally a 50% chance that it’s either the blonde or the brunette, one in two, and yet—

And yet, Sicheng already knows it’s the blonde, but he checks anyway and pretends to be surprised when he’s right.

His doppelganger goes by Winwin and has been in fifty different movies so far. His speciality seems to be bondage. He also looks exactly like Sicheng and is Yuta’s favourite porn star. Yuta enjoys watching porn that features someone that looks identical Sicheng. That’s fine. Sicheng’s going to need some time to process that. He decides to take it slowly, exit his incognito tab, and clear his mind.

Well, it’s. It’s definitely an emotion. From basal primal needs, Sicheng can deduce that it’s attractive to him to know that Yuta has such a high opinion of ‘his’ body. Clearly Yuta didn’t think of Sicheng as a sexless skyscraper at all, in fact, he thinks Sicheng so ridiculously desirable he watches—

This is not something Sicheng is equipped to deal with, he realizes.

 

𝚫

 

“You look stressed,” Taeyong comments. He reaches for the remote and Sicheng instantly cringes, hurtled back into his memories of the conversation of the weekend.

“That would be an accurate statement,” Sicheng replies. “Do you want anything to drink?”

“Lemonade?” Taeyong asks, eyes wide and hopeful.

Sicheng takes out the lemonade that he pretends he doesn’t buy especially for him and pours it in a tall glass. “Ice?”

“Two blocks. Also a little umbrella, if you’re being so polite.”

Sicheng ignores him and holds out his glass, and Taeyong accepts it, beaming. “So, now that you’ve ran out of distractions, are you going to tell me why you called me to come over for no reason despite telling me numerous times to forget where you live?”

Sicheng catches himself biting his lip and almost slaps his own mouth. He’s not picking up any more bad habits from his wretched roommate. “Something happened with Yuta and I don’t know what to feel about it.”

Taeyong nods. His face is always so understanding, so calming. “Okay. So, what happened? Start at the beginning. Did you two…”

Sicheng stops him before he says another word. “Nothing about us ‘two’, there is no ‘two’, there is just a one and it’s me.”

“Alright!” Taeyong holds out his hands. “Tell me then, I won’t make assumptions.”

There’s no classy way to communicate that his doppelganger is a pornstar, so Sicheng finds the best way is to shove his phone under Taeyong’s nose. His jaw hangs open, and he keeps looking back and forth from the screen to Sicheng’s face.

“Wait, I don’t understand, when did you…” Taeyong trails off. “Is this _porn_?”

Sicheng pauses the video. He wasn’t about to cross the boundary of ‘watching porn with your bros’ in the manner that Ten did with Yuta but but he needed to show Taeyong this far, enough to clearly discern a man about to get the blowjob of his life, what with the way his legs are spread and his eyes blown out.

“Sicheng,” Taeyong gasps, and opens his mouth.

“That’s not me,” Sicheng states.

Taeyong looks back down at screen. “I mean, are you _sure_?”

“Taeyong, it’s not me!” Sicheng slaps Taeyong’s shoulder with the back of his hand. “I know it’s not me. For one, would I not remember having filmed myself having sex with someone?”

“Okay, fine, that makes sense. Your memory is abnormally good,” Taeyong concedes. “So what is this?”

The statistics is a little sketchy at the best of times but the underlying mathematical principle makes sense. There’s only a certain number of genetic recombinations that can produce certain outcomes. With that in mind, it’s not entirely unbelievable that there could exist someone out there with an eerily similar face. In fact, it’s near certain that such a person does exist, it’s just that the odds of encountering them are incredibly low.

Finding them while watching porn? Somehow even lower.

“A coincidence,” Sicheng says.

“Damn,” Taeyong whistles. “This resemblance is creepy. He looks exactly like you.”

It’s somewhat of a relief to have an objective outsider confirm this. He wasn’t just reading too much into it. This really was a person who looked nearly identical to Sicheng, and this person, this _Winwin_ happened to have a career of being fucked for money, which was, of course, entirely valid. He was probably good at it too, judging from how many clips he’s been featured in. That felt good. At least his reputation as a success was intact.

Sicheng can’t deny his curious who makes more money between him and Winwin though.

“How did you find this guy?” Taeyong asks, passing his phone back, seemingly unable to look at the doppelganger for any longer. “You don’t really seem like the kind of person to… do those kind of things.”

Sicheng can’t muster up the energy to be offended when it is a true statement. It’s hard to believe this is all a knock-on effect of one impulse decision because he was alone and missed Yuta. Sicheng needs to stick to his usual style of planning his life a month in advance.

“I didn’t find it myself. It was Yuta’s recommendation.”

Taeyong opens his mouth and then closes it. He repeats this process three times. “That just gives me more questions.”

Sicheng tries to make this as painless as possible. “I paid for porn on cable and it was very bad and extremely heterosexual and Yuta found out because it was charged to his credit card. He didn’t want me spending money on porn so he offered to send me links to his favourite videos, and a lot of them have that actor Winwin in, and this actor looks identical to me, and I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel about this.”

Taeyong takes several minutes to replay the words in his mind, and when it all hits, his face flashes with recognition. “Oh. Oh, okay I understand. Yes, this is not a normal situation.”

“It really isn’t,” Sicheng says, and curls into himself on the couch. The validation is nice however.

Taeyong is such a tenderhearted and understanding individual. If the technology existed, Sicheng would outsource all his emotions to Taeyong. He just understood them all much better than Sicheng ever could.

“Well, do you think it’s weird?” Taeyong begins. That’s usually how this goes when Taeyong tries to help Sicheng unravel what he’s feeling. “Do you want him to stop, is it uncomfortable?”

“No,” Sicheng says, far too quickly. “It’s fine. I don’t mind at all.” Then he pauses: “Is it weird that I don’t find it weird?”

“You’re doing that thing where you ask me to feel for you, I don’t know what you feel,” Taeyong’s brows furrow. “But to answer your question, no it isn’t weird. It’s flattering. Is that maybe what you think? It’s nice to hear that he views you as being that desirable. Am I correct in that?”

Sicheng nods mutely.

“Okay, well, that gets us somewhat closer to understanding this situation. So you don’t mind. The question now remains as to… why.” Taeyong’s eyes drift to Sicheng’s phone. “Maybe it’s just a body type thing. What’s his usual type when it comes to guys?”

That’s a good question. By Yuta’s own confession, his sexual awakening was Sergio Ramos, but Taeyong is looking for a more realistic answer. Sicheng’s eyes flutter closed as he tries to unrepress memories of the men Yuta has brought in over the years. There’s most recently Doyoung, of course, cinched waist and bratty. There was Jaehyun, who permanently smelled of body spray and made the nicest coffee. And there was Mingyu, who was at least fifteen meters tall, built like a brickhouse, and used to carry Yuta around on his back.

And those were just the stable relationships. His hookups over the years have ranged in nearly every aspect from gender to height to preference of flipflop. Yuta once fucked a man who could get him a good deal on Havaianas and immediately dumped him upon receiving the goods.    

  “He doesn’t have a type,” Sicheng surmises.

“Oh,” Taeyong says, and he’s doing that thing where he’s thinking more than he’s saying. Sicheng knows that look very well.

“Is that a problem?”

“No, not at all. Doesn’t really matter.” Taeyong sips his lemonade and makes sure to put the glass back on the coaster, clearly remembering the last time Sicheng yelled at him for not doing so. Then Taeyong’s eyes light up. “Uh. The guy in the movie. Winwin. Did he, uh…”

“Uh?” Sicheng prompts.

Taeyong is really staring at Sicheng as if he can read his mind, which is impossible, because if Sicheng could read Taeyong’s mind, he’d probably never recover from the amount of rap music playing in his head at all times.

“Did he give or receive?”

“I think they exchanged blowjobs,” Sicheng says, and doesn’t really think it matters. There’s a defined pause. And then it hits him. “Taeyong, are you asking me if my doppelganger topped or bottomed?”

“I worded it nicer than that,” Taeyong pouts.

“ _Taeyong_!”

“Look, it’s a valid question! We’re trying to figure out why Yuta likes watching this, and that’s an important component.” Taeyong’s blush darkens his cheeks.

“I wouldn’t know,” Sicheng says, cheeks reddening. “I never watched the full video. Too weird. I’ve never been one of those people interested in fucking a clone of myself.”

“Wouldn’t it just be like masturbating?” Taeyong muses.

“No. No, it wouldn’t. It would be weird, Taeyong, why do you want to fuck a clone of yourself?”

“Would be nice to see how good I am in bed,” he says, a wistful look in his eyes.

Sicheng shifts a fraction further away from him. “Alright, we’re going to circle back to that at a later stage, but I’d assume he’d bottom. I don’t know, it seems like what Yuta prefers. I think we’re all aware of that.”

Taeyong frowns upon noticing Sicheng’s gaze on him. “Don’t look at me, I don’t know. I keep telling you, I never slept with him.”

Right. He forgets that they used to date. It was just so long ago, ancient history doesn’t even cover it.

“I know, I know. I just… this is a weird situation to be in,” Sicheng summarises and slumps deeper into the couch. Any further and he’d probably just reach the ground.

“Well, the next question is obviously, does he know?”

“I’m fairly certain he doesn’t,” Sicheng sighs. Yuta just isn’t the type of person to pick up on something like that, he doesn’t even notice when his phone battery is running down, he’d never consciously have sent those links to Sicheng if he realized.

“Oh,” Taeyong says again. “So he’s subconsciously thinking of you when he jacks off? Cool. Cool, that’s a normal thing that roommates do.”

“I’m sure if I told him, he’d be so horribly embarrassed he’d never look me in the eye again,” Sicheng points out.

“So, you’re not going to tell him?”

Just the idea of bringing it up makes Sicheng want to bury himself in dirt. “It would be so awkward,” Sicheng says. “How would I even bring that up?”

Taeyong frowns. “Look, you don’t have to but it might just come up anyway.” And then he hesitates.

“Well, don’t hold back, you’ve already basically seen me naked, not much more left to hide,” Sicheng says.

“This might be a good opportunity to… speak to Yuta. About things you may not have had a chance to in the past. Perhaps about changes in your relationship.”

One of Taeyong’s many good traits is that he prides himself on being diplomatic, but Sicheng is also very smart, so it’s ultimately pointless.

“Taeyong, you know I hate when you beat around the bush,” Sicheng says, eyes narrowed. And then flushes when he remembers where he last saw that expression.

“Tell Yuta that you like him,” Taeyong says, and then immediately covers his hands with his mouth.

Sicheng stares. “What did you just say?”

The damage is already done, and Taeyong seems to realize that as well, because he parts his fingers and speaks through the crack. “Sicheng, this has been going on for months. Just tell him. Tell him that he doesn’t need to watch porn because you’re right there and willing and have a reduced gag reflex.”

“Taeyong, you’re not getting anymore lemonade,” Sicheng says, and stands up, walks to the fridge and throws the whole bottle in the trash.

“The metaphor of that is lost on you,” Taeyong murmurs, and then shakes his head. “This isn’t about lemonade. Sicheng, surely you can’t expect me not to have noticed that you’ve become… different when you talk about Yuta.”

“Different, how? Tell me right now. Let me know immediately so I can re-adjust my personality accordingly.” Sicheng wonders if he should open up his tablet and start taking notes.

“Sicheng, it’s not like _that_ ,” Taeyong sighs, as if struggling to grasp the words he wants. “It’s not something that needs fixing, it’s just an observation.”

“And what’s the observation?”

“You’re gentle with him,” Taeyong says. “And not in a way that is uncharacteristic. You’ve always had a soft spot for Yuta, and I just think it’s become less of a ‘spot’ and it’s more just. _You._ ”

Sicheng opens his mind to refuse this, to deny everything, place thirteen different hypothetical explanations ranging from ‘I’ve never felt affection for another human being in my life’ to ‘maybe _you’re_ the one in love with Yuta’. But, Taeyong has always been so gentle, so annoyingly cautious of everyone’s feelings that it’s hard to believe there’s anything other than absolute sincerity behind those doe eyes.

“Taeyong, I’m not going to talk to him. There’s no need to.” Sicheng’s teeth are tight together, not allowing even a breath to pass through.

“You do like him, don’t you?” Taeyong says and his eyes widen, and Sicheng immediately sees the need to cut off that before it goes any further.

“Of course not, Taeyong. The only thing I like are kites and math, we know this.”

 

𝚫 

 

“Did you ever look at those links I sent you?” Yuta asks, drizzling so much syrup on his waffle it gives Sicheng a toothache from just looking at it.

“No,” Sicheng says. And then he feels Yuta’s eyes on him, and falters, reconsidering. He’s never been very good at keeping things from Yuta. Something about how piercing his gaze could be. It could be terrifying. “Yes.”

Yuta nods. “Cool. See any you liked?”

It’s a blessing, really. Yuta is so unflappable, so hard to genuinely fluster, that any residual awkwardness from that day seems to have melted off him entirely. He talks out of pure interest, no ulterior motives. There never is ulterior motives, though, not when it’s Yuta and it’s so effortlessly natural.

“I couldn’t really watch a few of them. Was a little weird.”

“Was it the bondage? Damn, I thought you might have been into that to be honest.” Yuta licks syrup off his thumb and Sicheng’s mind stops functioning for a moment when he sees Yuta’s tongue.

“No,” Sicheng says, dragging himself to reality in the form of aggressively exiting his news app, and looking up at Yuta. He steels himself. “It’s just that your favourite pornstar looks exactly like me.” Best to just rip the bandaid off, quickly, before it gets infected and odorous and they have to sever the whole finger off.

Yuta laughs, full-bellied and broad. “If you say so.” His ignorance is incredible. He’s like going to an art gallery and admiring the statues while the drape sheets are still over them.

“I’m being serious.”

“Sure you are,” Yuta says, biting on his lip to stop his giggles. “And you say you don’t really have a sense of humour!”

“Yuta, I look exactly like Winwin.” Sicheng frowns. “No. Winwin looks like me. I’m the original. And stop laughing and genuinely think it through.”

He sees it happen, the realization. In one moment, Yuta is still happily chuckling, his head thrown back. Then, he sits up and surveys Sicheng, lingering from top to bottom, and then— _and then_. His eyes widen. And fear strikes across his face in abrupt flash.

“Wait, oh, fuck—, shit,” Yuta swears and rises to his feet as if he wants to jump out the nearest window. His eyes even drift there, peering at the blue sky that seems to mock him, and then looks back at Sicheng. He wets his lips before he speaks, trying to come up with some sort of explanation. “God, I never even noticed, I swear, I hadn’t realized—, oh, Sicheng, I’m…”

“It’s fine!” Sicheng ends up shrilling out. “Really, it’s fine.” Taeyong was wrong, it was a terrible idea to confront Yuta about this, he looks about ready to commit ritualistic suicide.

“It’s not _fine!_ God, this is so inappropriate, I am so sorry Sicheng, I’ll throw my whole laptop in a fire right now, let me just put on my shoes, where did I put my lighter—”

Well, it was Taeyong who said it was flattering. That it was a conventional and understandable human emotion. And he could genuinely be relied upon to be a sort of emotional thermometer, letting Sicheng knew when the water is warm, letting him know what he could say.

“Yuta, I don’t mind. I think it’s a compliment.”

Yuta’s eyebrows knit together. “What?”

“I think it’s flattering that you think someone who looks so similar to me is that attractive to you.” It’s the exact same thing he told Taeyong. So why does this seem so much stranger?

Yuta seems to be repeating those words to himself, judging from the movements of his lips. Then, “You don’t mind?”

“Not at all.” And Sicheng sort of squeaks out something that sounds like: “I like it.” And then all but staples his mouth shut. He places his gaze very firmly on his phone even though all he’s staring at his lockscreen  — a default image that came prebuilt of autumn leaves. He watches the minute digit of his clock change before he dares to look back up.

And Yuta is _staring_.

Yuta is staring at him, unashamed, unafraid and with something that Sicheng would almost describe as want. There’s a thread of it there, buried in his dark pupils, and it spreads out across his face. Yuta’s gaze has always been piercing, but it’s less like cutting through armour, and more like disassembling each piece, one by one.

Sicheng isn’t stupid. Quite the opposite. He’s too clever, most of the time, and he knows that he’s the cause of this, he knows he’s fanning the flames and he’s in such danger of getting his fingers charred. He knows that logically, if he wants to get over any of his feelings for Yuta, he needs to discourage things like this, he needs to make those platonic boundaries like they’re concrete walls.

But Sicheng can’t bring himself to. He doesn’t know how deeply he craves Yuta but sometimes it seems like it comes from as deep as his bones. And Sicheng doesn’t think Yuta wants him, certainly not after all this time, certainly not after Sicheng already crushed his heart to fragments — but this situation does add a new element to this equation, that even if love doesn’t exist, there’s a thread of lust there.

“You like it?” Yuta says, and his tongue spreads out across his lips. 

The outcomes present themselves to him in a manner that is rational. There’s a name for this, there’s a law for this but Sicheng can’t think of it right now, can’t think of anything but Yuta.

There’s the one where Sicheng says that yes, he likes it, he likes that Yuta finds pleasure in the thought of his body, and perhaps then Yuta, ever impulsive, might suggest something to the tune of a practical demonstration.

And then there’s the one where Sicheng says that yes, he likes it, but he also sort of likes a lot of things about Yuta and they aren’t just limited to that. In fact, he’d go as far to say he likes Yuta so much it hurts that he’s hardly ever here.

And then there’s the one Sicheng actually chooses. Where he puts on that blank expression he always does, says “Yeah, it’s whatever” and stare back at his phone, trying to ignore the way his hand shakes, and the way he can feel Yuta’s eyes on him.

Yuta stops staring — but only after the clock changes again.

 

𝚫

 

It’s all Yuta talks about nowadays. The playoffs. It’s what the entire season has been building up to, it’s the most important thing in the school year. Or, something like that. Truthfully, Sicheng isn’t entirely sure what the playoffs are. It’s a game, certainly; a soccer game, because he knows enough about Yuta’s job to remember what sport he coaches. As for whether it’s just one game, or a tournament or some sort of Battle Royale situation to the death, is up in the air however.

The whiteboard becomes Yuta’s nighttime companion. Sometimes in early hours of the morning he’ll hear Yuta rise from bed, soon accompanied by the squeak of the marker as he fiddles around with strategies. He’s as stressed as Yuta ever gets, and Sicheng can’t help but wish he could do something more to help, but he also really doesn’t understand soccer.

Sicheng would live to regret that thought, when Yuta asks him one Friday as he drops his bag in the lounge and immediately amends something on the whiteboard: “Hey, do you want to come watch the playoffs?”

“Like on TV?” Sicheng says.

Yuta smiles for a brief second before turning back to the board, picking up the eraser. “No. Like in real life.”

“Like… you want me to be there physically?” Sicheng clarifies.

In the two years that Yuta has been working at Bishop’s Academy, Sicheng has never been there. He can’t say he wants to either. He did his time already, he graduated high school, no force on Earth could make him go back to the infernal place — no force apparently, but Yuta.  

“Why not?” Yuta says. “The game starts at four on Friday, you can leave work a little early, take the bus and head straight to the playing field and we can go back afterwards. And you can meet my boys!”

Okay, so the playoffs are a single game. That’s what he thinks, anyway. Honestly, Sicheng finds it boring to watch professionals play soccer — watching teenagers play it sounds a thousand times worse. But Yuta’s been obsessing over this for ages, literally losing sleep over it, he can’t just say no.

“Sure,” Sicheng says. “But I’m not taking the fucking bus.”

 

𝚫

 

He doesn’t take the fucking bus, but he does lie to his boss. Family commitments, he tells Jongin, who thankfully doesn’t press him for further questions such as, and not limited to, “isn’t all your family in China?”

It’s easier to just fabricate some wedding than to admit that he’s going to watch high schoolers play soccer. Kun waves at him from his window when he sees Sicheng pull out of the parking lot and Sicheng grins back, not at all looking forward to the drive that awaits him, nor the match following it.

At least soccer is a fairly simple sport. He can figure out what’s happening, and the scoreboard is very big, so he knows when to cheer at the appropriate moment. The bleachers are packed with students, but thankfully he’s on a separate side for the other adults, most of whom seem to be parents. Several mothers are already eyeing Sicheng with interest, with one woman offering him a Coke, to which he responded, “I’m extremely gay, but thank you very much.”

It’s fairly easy to make out Yuta on the playing field. Part of it is because he’s one of the few people not wearing the maroon and gold uniform, but also just because his mannerisms are so easily detected, even from here. The way he raises his arms and yells is just in the way only Yuta ever does, and Sicheng does find that he ends up watching Yuta pace around the field more than the actual game. There’s a brief moment where Yuta looks like he’s about to punch the referee, but one of his students seems to calm him down, and Yuta splashes a whole bottle of water onto himself.

They win, of course they do, Sicheng expected nothing less. Yuta had been working so hard, and he knows the rest of the team must be talented to drive such passion out of Yuta. He gushes about his team like they are his own children, and while he’s not above his criticisms — “If Jeno disrupts practise one more time with a cat video, I’m banning all phones” — he does genuinely seem to care for them.

The crowd erupts like fireworks, the applause and shouts echoing throughout the stadium. Yuta is being mobbed by his own adoring team, and he can almost hear their laughter from the bleachers. Sicheng is unsure where is he supposed to go now. Should he stay here and wait for Yuta? Or go to his room? He doesn’t even know where the faculty dorms are.

And then he notices all the moms beginning to disperse and tails after them carefully, and they seem to be converging on a particular location — the field itself, outside the locker room. They instantly run towards their children, and said children start groaning from the affection, and Sicheng casts his gaze around, looking for where their coach might be hiding, when he feels arms enclose him.

If it was anyone else, Sicheng would have crushed them, would have body-slammed them, would have sued them. Yuta is wet with a combination of ice water and sweat, and he absolutely reeks. There’s grass in his hair, and dirt under his fingernails, and he looks like what you’d expect someone to look like after ninety minutes under a hot sun — but when he hugs Sicheng, pressing his face into his shoulder like it’s the most natural thing in the world, Sicheng decides to hold off on calling his lawyers and just sink into his embrace.

“You came, you came, you came!” Yuta sings, looking up at Sicheng like he’s as shiny as their trophy.

“I came,” Sicheng confirms, and his heart is doing something strange in his chest. “I’m so glad you won, Yuta, I knew you would.”

“So am I. Would have had to cut off my pinky finger if we didn’t,” Yuta says solemnly. He gazes over his shoulder at the crowd of teenagers assembling. “We’re off to celebrate. You’re coming with, right?”

“Uh,” Sicheng says.

“Come on, you can’t refuse. What else are you going to do anyway, sit alone in my dorm room for the next hour?” Yuta says, dragging Sicheng by his shoulder and thrusting him in front of seven pairs of unblinking eyes. “Let me introduce you to my team.”

 

𝚫

 

The team, being composed of uneducated high schoolers who haven’t heard about the cholesterol associated with fast food, all piled into the nearest KFC and commandeered the largest table at the back of the establishment. It’s a little less than the full team, some members were bodily restrained by their parents for their private celebrations, but even down to seven members, they make enough noise to cause Sicheng to dream of going back to his office cubicle.

“They’re wonderful, aren’t they?” Yuta says fondly and then proceeds to thwack the team captain with a plastic tray. “Mark, stop talking so fucking loudly, I’m trying to tell my best friend how fucking wonderful you all are and you’re making it _difficult_.”

Mark attempts to defend his actions and is silenced when Jaemin shoves a fry in his open mouth.

“They’re certainly big eaters,” Sicheng remarks. “Who’s paying for this?”

Yuta’s smile falters. “I didn’t really think of that. God, and those fucking brats ate seconds as well, and I know they’re going to want ice cream. Can’t believe I’m going into debt for a few good chicken pieces.”

And then, as if divine providence summoned him, Ten walks in and sits next to Yuta, popping a bubble in his ear. “You never told me where you were going. I had to ask Jisung’s parents,” he frowns. He picks a fry off of Yuta’s plate and eats it, not even bothering to take out his gum.

“That’s because you weren’t invited,” Yuta says, but doesn’t seem too offended. “Feeling generous enough to sponsor this dinner?”

“No.”

“That’s fair,” Yuta says, and then eats the other half of the stolen fry in Ten’s grip.

Truthfully, Sicheng probably found their friendship concerning at first. They appeared to have very little in common besides their place of employment — and even then, Yuta was a soccer coach, and Ten was the part-time drama teacher. Sicheng was pretty sure those extracurriculars were mutually exclusive, thereby reducing the possibility they even met.

Yet, despite all the evidence to suggest otherwise, Sicheng could quite realistically rank Ten as Yuta’s second closest friend in the world, barring himself, of course. Sicheng had never spent much time with Ten and didn’t often make the two hour bus ride. He did the logical thing which was to live in the area, where real estate was cheaper and he wouldn’t have to waste valuable hours of his life in awful public transport.

But Sicheng didn’t really want to think about that, because now Ten was licking ketchup off Yuta’s fingers while Yuta glared at him. Perhaps, at one time, Sicheng could have wondered if there was any underlying romantic intent behind it but it was some weekend last year that Sicheng asked Yuta upfront if he and Ten were dating.

To which Yuta burst out laughing and said: “He keeps making jokes that his dick has teeth. I don’t want to find out if its true.”

So, they aren’t together. And Sicheng wouldn’t mind if they were. But they aren’t. And that’s good.

“Sicheng, right?” Ten says, eyeing him up and down. “It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other. There was that one day I came over, and before that it was last Christmas, right?”

“Yes, I watched you throw up in my bathroom,” Sicheng says.

“Tis’ truly the season,” Ten replies. “What are you doing in our neck of the woods? Thinking about enrolling your illegitimate children in a place of prestige? If that’s the case, I really suggest that you go elsewhere, I wouldn’t trust Bishop’s, they hired me.”

“I’m here for the game.” Sicheng sips his iced tea. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, I just wanted to drop by and celebrate. I’m in the area, anyway, I’ve been picking up a few shifts here.” Ten points over to the counter.

Yuta turns to him with renewed interest. “You never told me that.”

“It’s not a permanent thing. One of their staff tripped and fell and got pregnant and is off for a few months, and I’m a bit strapped for cash at the moment, so it wasn’t exactly a difficult decision.” Ten leans to the other table and pokes the striker, Number 7.

“Chenle, are you gonna finish that?” Ten asks and beams when he slides the chicken over.

Ten starts talking about an incident involving the parents of Chenle, and Yuta listens enraptured, and Sicheng begins to feel more and more like he doesn’t really belong in this conversation. Eating fried chicken with Yuta’s team and his best friend is not something that Sicheng is sure how to handle, this is not a domain of Yuta’s life that he has any stake in. He’s not jealous though — if he’s to be entirely honest, he’s happy that Yuta has such a good life here. It’s what he deserves. It’s probably better than the one he lives the other 26.2% of the week.   

“Speaking of money, though, Yuta, have you given any more thought to that teaching position? It sounds like such your type of thing,” Ten remarks.

“Teaching?” Sicheng says, and Yuta’s eyes flash like a warning.

“Now’s not the time to talk about work, Ten. We’re having faculty-appropriate fun in this dining establishment,” Yuta says, and then stands up and gazes at his team. “One of you, come here, go tell my best friend what an amazing coach I am.”

There’s what seems like a very fast game of rock, paper, scissors that occurs, and the offering is a pleasant-looking teenager with sandy brown hair. He slides in next to Sicheng and waves. “I’m Jaemin.”

“Hello Jaemin,” Sicheng greets, and doesn’t shake his hand because he can see the grease coating his fingers.

“This is Sicheng,” Yuta introduces, pride palpable in his voice. “He’s an investment banker. Very interesting job. Knows a lot about math. He’s the coolest person I’ve ever met.”

Ten snorts. “I’m right here, but go off I guess.”

Jaemin just grins goodnaturedly. His friends snicker among themselves. “It’s nice to put a face to a name. Coach talks about you quite a bit.”

It takes Sicheng a moment to realize that ‘coach’ is referring to Yuta. He looks up at him, and is surprised to see that Yuta’s face burns in embarrassment.

Yuta coughs. “That doesn’t matter Jaemin. You were supposed to tell him what an inspiration I am to you all and how I’ve taught you so much.”

“He’s an inspiration to us all and he’s taught us so much.”

“You little shit—”

Ten clears his throat and claps his hands together. “As entertaining as this is, my shift is starting, so I’ll see you guys out front before you leave.”

“Good luck with your chicken, I’ll miss you every second you’re gone,” Yuta calls. He turns to Jaemin. “Do you gremlins still want ice cream?”

“Your team, that just won the playoffs and made you proud, would like ice cream, yes,” Jaemin answers, grinning broadly. He really does seem to smile a lot.

Yuta sighs broadly, and takes out his wallet. “Right, let’s go and order.”

“Actually, Yuta, it’s fine, I’ll cover it,” Sicheng says, quickly standing up.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that. These aren’t your children. They aren’t mine, either, but like legally I’m supposed to buy them snacks or something. I don’t know, they claim to have read my contract,” Yuta yawns.

“Really, it’s no trouble. Besides, as you’ve mentioned, I have a very interesting job. I can afford it,” Sicheng says, and stands up, effectively cutting Yuta’s protests off. Jaemin dutifully tags alongside him, and orders the cones from Ten, who looks surprisingly different with the addition of the KFC uniform. Not necessarily more reliable, just different, like his palette was swapped.

“Someone’s feeling generous,” Ten comments, punching in the cash register.

Sicheng shrugs. "It’s ice cream, it’s hardly like I’m buying them each a Switch.”

“Would be damn cool if you did though, but you’d have to buy me one too. I’m an honorary member of the soccer team, you know. I’m there to watch his matches when no one else is,” Ten nods sagely.

“I’m glad then.” And Sicheng means it. It’s good that Yuta has a support system that surrounds his life here, and it’s clear he has his team that adores him as well as his friends. Sicheng doesn’t necessarily feel jealous — more empty. There’s just such a distinct lack of Sicheng’s influence here, there’s barely a sign that he’s so involved in Yuta’s life.

He’s being ridiculous, he knows that.

“How’s Taeyong doing?” Ten asks, leaning against the cash register in a way that’s probably not in the employee regulations.

“Taeyong?” Sicheng repeats, puzzled. “Uh, he’s fine, I guess. Bought more kites.”

“He does love kites, doesn’t he?” Ten says, almost fondly.

“Why do you ask?” It’s not like they were _friends_.

He opens his mouth to answer, when the cones arrive, and he hands them to Jaemin and Sicheng. “Ah, well, I hope to see you again soon. We really should hang out more.”

Sicheng can’t say he agrees with that, but figures there’s no harm in just smiling back at him.

“Coach is a good guy,” Jaemin says thoughtfully, and Sicheng almost forgot he was standing there. “We like giving him a hard time, but he also likes making life miserable for us. Works out in the end though. We have another trophy.”

“He’s really fond of you all,” Sicheng says.

“He talks about you a lot as well. Though, maybe not very accurately. You know, I will say, the way Coach describes you? Way shorter.”

 

𝚫

 

 

Kites had a practical purpose in Ancient China. Armies were spread far apart, a force like rolling fog, and they spanned the entire country. They would need a manner to communicate despite the distance, they would need something to let the others know when they needed help. When the men were captured, when they were running out of food, when their lives were in danger. So, they sent kites. They constructed the kites out of the bamboo that surrounds them, joined in silk, and sent them up in the skies. This was in the hopes that someone would look up at the air, and see the white against the blue, and realize ‘ _They need help’_ ’.

Sicheng can see the logic in it.

He watches Yuta out of the corner of his eye, cross-legged, lips curled up in amusement at a video on his phone. He’s already packed, his travel bag sits in the doorway as imposing as a marble statue. He always waits for the last possible moment before he rushes down to the bus stop. Uses the excuse that the consequent panicking is good for his cardio.

Yuta breaks off to laugh, eyes twinkling and he pauses the video to savour his enjoyment. Sicheng is aware that he’s somewhat of a voyeur now, just staring at Yuta as he does nothing of particular interest, but oh, _oh_ it’s just nice to look at him. He’s pleasing to look at, aesthetically, and that’s the excuse Sicheng uses even if the Yuta currently in front of him hasn’t shaved in several days and parts of his hair sticks up in different directions.

“Would you ever consider moving?” Sicheng asks, breaking his own stare. Yuta blinks at him in confusion.

“I mean… where?”

“Anywhere else.”

Yuta pauses. “Do you not like the apartment? I know the heating is a bit spotty, but it’s got such great bandwidth, I don’t know if I’d be willing to part ways.”

“It’s not about the apartment,” Sicheng frowns. “I just wanted to know in general.”

Yuta leans back in the couch, and considers. “My dream is to live in a penthouse with a rooftop pool. And electric wall heaters. I think those are so neat, you just walk down to the kitchen and _whoosh_ , just get blasted by warmth. Can you imagine how awesome that would be?”

“Be serious,” Sicheng chastises, and from the way Yuta grins it’s clear that all of this is deliberate.

“Fine,” Yuta concedes. “I’ve always wanted a house, you know? Like a proper house with a lawn that I can set up a hammock on and waste hours just swinging away. And I mean, being closer to work would be great, obviously. No one enjoys a two hour bus ride, I think I can say that openly.”

Sicheng’s heart sinks. He can’t say he’s surprised. Like Yuta said himself, no one could ever want to live like he lives right now.

“But,” Yuta presses on, “Where would we even go? The halfway point between here and the academy is like, the middle of a field. And anyway, it would take too long for you to commute to work. So there’s no point really.”

“What?”

Yuta throws up his hands in surrender. “Okay, look, maybe it’s not an _actual_ field, but it’s definitely in those farmlands. You would never be able to handle the smell of manure, okay, you get pissed at me when I leave one cup of coffee in the sink.”

“No, not that.” It’s like there’s bees inside of his head right now, buzzing against the walls of his skull. “I just… what do you mean about my work?”

There’s a moment of confusion, and then it seems to hit Yuta all at once. “I mean, obviously we’d be moving together?” And then he hesitates, “Right?”

Sicheng exhales louder than he needs to, to cover up the sound he hears from his own thoughts. “Yeah. Of course. I was just checking.”

The thing about Yuta is that he’s so perceptive, that he always seems to know more than he lets on, and chooses to hold back. Sicheng had to train himself into picking up details but for Yuta, it’s as natural as breathing. And Yuta must notice something’s wrong because his eyebrows quirk up in interest — but his movements are slow. Calculated.

At first he locks his phone, and yawns, stretching. Then, he stands up, taking the time to shake the immobility from his legs. He pauses to grab water out of the fridge, and then deposits it on the counter so he can adequately drape himself over Sicheng’s instantly-struggling form.

“What are you doing?” Sicheng protests.

“I’m hugging you, fool,” Yuta replies, nuzzling his face into the crook of Sicheng’s shoulder. “You look very cute today. Did you change your shampoo?”

“Yes, I’ve started using ox blood mixed with liquor, _let me go_.” His objections are ultimately useless, but he also wasn’t trying very hard. It felt nice to just let Yuta embrace him, letting all that natural heat that bottles up inside of him release through where his fingertips meet on Sicheng’s skin.

Yuta pulls him tighter, mumbling. “I can’t believe you thought I’d ever live without you.”  

And then stills. He can hear Sicheng’s sharp intake of breath. And Sicheng _knows_ what Yuta meant, it was just a poor word choice, they were literally speaking about living arrangements, there’s no ambiguity about what he said. But, God, if Sicheng didn’t sort of wish that there was.

“I mean,” Yuta begins, retracting himself from the hug. Sicheng already misses the heat. “I mean, like—”

“Of course, I know what you meant,” Sicheng says, with more confidence than he feels. The buzzing in his mind increases. It’s a wonder Yuta doesn’t hear it when he’s so close. “I was just curious, is all. I have no intention of moving anyway.”

“Well, that’s good,” Yuta says, and brightens up. “I like it here. I like what we have.”

And that’s it, isn’t it. _I like what we have_. No need to change it, no adjustments necessary. They’d be unwanted. Sicheng doesn’t understand why this upsets him so much. Of course, objectively, life is great the way it is. He doesn’t need anything more, and he won’t ruin the life he’s built up because of some passing infatuation.

It’s Yuta’s sigh that brings Sicheng back. “It’s getting late. I really should get going.”

“Of course,” Sicheng answers mechanically.

“But next weekend, do you want to do something? Maybe we can get dinner on Saturday? Or go for a run Sunday morning? Let me know what you think.” And then with a squeeze on his shoulder, Yuta picks up his phone, grabs his travel bag and is out of the door before Sicheng can say anything else. He watches the lock click into place, and the apartment suddenly feels a lot emptier, and Sicheng starts to wait for the next weekend. Yuta’s already gone, and taken his heat with him, but Sicheng’s skin still seems to burn where Yuta held him.

He thinks of holding a white kite, thinks of letting it soar to the ceiling of the apartment and above, higher and higher, till it’s above the rooftop of the whole building, till the whole city can see it, till everyone can see and so everyone can know: “ _They need help_.”  

 

𝚫

 

Company meals are a waste of time. There is no pleasure to be derived from sitting down with your colleagues, afterhours, to drink a limited amount of watered down wine and eat some unsatisfactory food that was picked by whoever happened to whisper his preference near Jongin that day.

It was apparently Kun, who betrayed Sicheng today, and recommended this ridiculously lavish restaurant that opened up recently with a fully-stocked bar that no one could really make use of anyway, lest they end up blackout drunk in the trunk of Jongin's Prius.

Sicheng is conflicted. On the one hand, it has to be said that this place is amazing. It has a stage with a pianist playing some twinkly tunes, and the atmosphere just feels expensive. On the other hand, he is seated between his boss and his colleague and thinks he would have preferred being between two large and hungry jungle cats.

“This is nice,” the jaguar says, combing his hand through his styled hair. Jongin always did have a fondness for gel, a fondness bordering on obsession based upon the stench of citrus on Monday mornings that waft from his office. “I’m so glad we do this.”

Sicheng doesn’t respond under the guise of scanning the menu. They have that bouillabaisse he likes and he orders a portion of that, and sparkling water because sometimes drinking something he hates helps remind him that life is ultimately unfair and ruled over by an uncaring God.

“Sicheng, I was wondering,” Kun says, in between buttering the complimentary bread roll. It’s upsetting that he only uses half of a butter cube. Just use the whole thing, the amount of calories derived from what’s leftover would be a blip in the ocean compared to the doughy roll itself. Sicheng realizes he hasn’t actually listened to what Kun said.

“Yes?” Sicheng says.

“I’m sure you’ve heard about the seminar Leeteuk’s hosting in the state over.” Ah yes, there was an email about that. Sicheng scanned it while picking spinach out of his teeth. “If you want to come with, you can take a drive with me. I thought I’d stay the night as well, catch the sights, maybe go wine tasting.”

“It’s over the weekend, right?” Sicheng says, moving his arms to allow the waiter to place his glass of water next to him. “In that case, no, I don’t work weekends.”

“Not even when it’s Leeteuk? And we can split a hotel and save costs?” Kun pitches. His grin is enticing, and Sicheng won’t deny that he’s interested to meet a man as mysterious and wealthy as Leeteuk.

“I have plans on the weekend,” Sicheng offers as an explanation, and that’s all that needs to be said.

“Must be important plans,” Kun says with a hint of amusement in his voice.

He was certainly right about that. It’s about at this time that the starters arrive, and Sicheng starts to dig into his falafel when he becomes aware of the crooning of the lounge singer. It’s not necessarily that he likes the song, but rather the voice itself is familiar. It takes Sicheng a moment before he recognizes it fully. He hasn’t heard it sing before, but there’s a lilt to the vowels, indicative of an accent, and he can almost place it—

“ _Ten_.”

“Sorry, didn’t catch that?” Kun says, smiling.

“Ten more of these glasses and I won’t be able to drive home,” Sicheng brushes off, lifting his wine. “Sorry, can you excuse me for a moment?”

It certainly does _look_ like Ten. Adorned in a glittery blazer, his eyes are painted with bright eyeshadow and when he spies Sicheng, he broadly winks, and continues to sing. Sicheng is polite enough to wait until he finishes his song, sipping, and his voice is really quite enjoyable as he serenades his way through the piano accompaniment.

When the song ends, Ten breathes a quick word to the pianist before he jumps down from the makeshift stage and approaches Sicheng, immediately liberating him of his wine glass.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Ten says, grinning. His lips are sparkling. He’s rather irresistible, but Sicheng was never really been enticed by such dramatic displays of beauty.

“I live here,” Sicheng says. “What are _you_ doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be at school?”

“I _was_ at school,” Ten protests and then pauses. “Can you not say it like that, it makes me feel like I’m a student there.”

“Right, fine, my apologies for the semantics,” Sicheng rolls his eyes. He can’t say he’s spent too much time with Ten, and most likely, this conversation will be a reminder why.

“But yes. I was at school. And then I came here. Pretty sweet gig, isn’t it? Pay isn’t the best but if I flirt with the old ladies and let them grab my ass, I get the best tips here.” 

Sicheng struggles to comprehend this. On the one hand, Ten does certainly seem like he belongs here, and even now, there’s a woman eyeing him up and down from the bar. When Ten notices, he blows a kiss. So he’s certainly comfortable here.

Often living with Yuta in their strange arrangement made it felt like they lived two separate existences, opposites sides of the Venn diagram, with the intersecting union being those few hours on the weekend. Sicheng is accustomed to it now, really, and it’s a little distressing, to have something from Yuta’s other life merge with Sicheng’s other life. But if anyone was going to do it, he supposes it might as well be Ten.

“Why are you here? Convention on numbers happening?” Ten asks, flagging the bartender and pointing to the glass in his hand, gesturing for a refill.

“It’s not a fucking convention on numbers. What do you think I do at work all day? That I just sit and push buttons on my calculator and then get a cheque at the end of the month?” Sicheng asks.

“I mean, honestly yeah,” Ten says and starts to yawn.

“Well, no, I don’t do that. But I am here because of work,” Sicheng begrudgingly admits. “What time do you get off?”

“Are you propositioning me for sex, because Sicheng, I do need to make it clear I am in a committed relationship at the moment and really not available—”

“I don’t want to fuck you,” Sicheng states.

Ten’s hand covers his mouth as he gasps. “You are on the wrong side of history, my friend. Why wouldn’t you want to fuck me? And to think, I was even considering texting my boo and asking if we could invite you next time.”

He becomes aware of Jongin peering over at him, and notices the main courses have already been served. He doesn’t trust leaving his food alone for too long, that’s how people get poisoned.

“I have to go back, but if you’re still here when I’m done, we can chat.”

“I’ll be here,” Ten says, waving him off. “Go have fun with your numbers. Tell them I said hi.”

 

𝚫

 

He had joked to Kun about ten glasses of wine, but after three, he’s starting to feel pleasantly dopey. Not drunk, of course not, this is a work function after all, but he lets the alcohol lift up some of his worries and lets it disappear into the ether. At nine-thirty sharp, Jongin pays for the bill and bids his farewell, and the rest of his team disappears shortly afterwards.

“Ready to go?” Kun asks, kindly holding out Sicheng’s jacket for him.

Sicheng takes it and hesitates. Ten is still singing, this time sitting down, almost lazily crooning out a ballad, voice husky. And while he wouldn’t go as far to call Ten a friend, it’s not often he gets to speak to him — and he can’t deny his curiosity on how Yuta is doing the rest of the week, about the parts he doesn’t tell him.

“I’m actually going to hang back. I know the lounge singer, think I might catch up with him,” Sicheng says.

Kun raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t know you hung around with that kind of crowd.”

“I really don’t,” Sicheng says with more emphasis than necessary. “He’s just… a friend of a friend.”

Kun leaves him at the bar, and Sicheng merely waves to Ten, figuring that he’d come down eventually, driven by the allure of potential free wine, and when he hops off the stage again, Sicheng already orders a glass for him.

“You’re so sweet,” Ten grins, “I would love to give you a kiss.”

“You can’t.” There is no amusement in Sicheng’s voice. “I will kill you if you do.”

“I can see why Yuta likes you.”

Sicheng snorts, ignoring the butterflies clawing at his throat. “You were telling me about your lounge singing job.”

“I don’t know what more to say,” Ten shrugs, sipping. “It’s a tough economy. Gotta make my bread somehow.”

Sicheng wouldn’t necessarily call it sympathy. More confusion. “Doesn’t the academy pay you enough?”

“I’m only part-time,” Ten scoffs, “And anyway, I have a big purchase coming up. I need some cash and quickly.”

“Planning to buy an island?”

Ten’s eyes light up. “God, now that you mention it, that would be so cool—” He shakes his head. “No, sadly, not buying an island. But if I did, you’d be welcome. You’re not as boring as I thought you were! I don’t know why we don’t hang out more.”

“Well, you live there. I live here,” Sicheng states.

“Yes, and it’s such a pity that roads aren’t invented and that the journey would take longer than the Oregon Trail and I’d die of dysentery during the arduous eight months,” Ten says solemnly and then rolls his eyes. “Man, I can take a fucking bus, Yuta just never invites me around. He’s so possessive of the time you spend together. I’d tell you to just get a room but you already have a whole apartment.”

Sicheng blinks, unsure whether to be offended. “It’s not my fault he doesn’t tell you to come over.”

“He just wants you to himself. Very selfish. Yell at him about that next time,” Ten says. Sicheng suspects Ten may have been drinking throughout the night, but supposes he’s in no position to judge, having consumed roughly the same amount.

“You know me and Yuta aren’t together, right?” Sicheng says, more dully than intended. He just has to clarify. He can’t let Ten leave with any misconceptions. Sicheng is well aware of Yuta’s possessiveness but it exists only to the boundaries of friendship.

“Oh, I’m very much aware,” Ten snorts. “If that ever changes, do let me know. Send me an email or something.”

Sicheng doesn’t know why he’s blushing. “How’s Yuta doing?”

The piano continues to play, and it sounds empty without Ten’s singing accompanying it. Several women turn around, looking where the lounge singer wandered off to. “Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

“I will,” Sicheng says simply, “But I just want to know if he’s actually fine.”

Ten eyes him for a moment. “He’s doing great. The stress is off him since the playoffs are done, so soccer practise has become a much nicer affair for him. The other day I caught him under the receiving end of an immense tackle hug. He may have broken a bone or two.”

Sicheng doesn’t realize that he smiles at the image in his mind.

“But, of course, he’s been spending a lot of time thinking about the offer, since classes would start in a few months.” Ten downs the rest of his wine and waves down the bartender again and stares deeply into his eyes. “Know that if you asked me to, I’d die for you.”

The bartender nods and pours him another glass. Sicheng doesn’t focus on any of that.

“What offer? What classes? I don’t think I follow?” Sicheng says. “School’s been running for months already.”

“You know, the _offer_ ,” Ten sighs. “The principal asked if he would consider doing the necessary studying to become qualified as an actual teacher. He could take over real classes, instead of just doing the coaching and handling physical education.”

Sicheng would remember this. Sicheng knows he would remember this but there’s a gap in his memories and the only explanation for it is that Yuta never told him this.

“I didn’t know this,” Sicheng says quietly, and it takes a moment for Ten to process his words but when he does, he flushes.

“Oh. Oh, I thought he did. Oh, Sicheng, I apologize if I wasn’t supposed to. Look, it’s not a big deal, Yuta’s not keen on it anyway. He doesn’t really want to go back to university for a year. He told me himself.”

“I wonder why he didn’t tell me.” He raps his knuckles on the countertop.

“I’m sure it just slipped his mind,” Ten says with fake cheer. “Besides, he’s not going to take it. Like he’d live without you for a while.”

Because—

Because of course. If he was back at university, he wouldn’t be able to live with Sicheng 26.2% of the time. Or any amount of time. He’d stay at the dorms, and it’s not like either of them would be able to visit each other regularly, not with how far everything was, and how busy they’d both be…

And a sinking feeling hits Sicheng’s gut when he starts to realize why Yuta didn’t tell him.

“Thanks for telling me, Ten,” Sicheng says, and puts on his jacket. “I really should get going though, I’m exhausted. Good luck with the rest of your set.”

“Sicheng,” Ten hesitates, hopping off his stool. “Don’t take this as a breach of trust or anything. Yuta loves you. Like, that’s not even worth mentioning because it’s so obvious, but he really does.”

“Oh,” Sicheng says, and he sort of wish Ten didn’t tell him that. He feels even sicker now.

“He talks about you all the time. It’s honestly kind of obnoxious. Like we get it, you think Sicheng is the smartest guy in the world and has such cute ears you want to cry. Move on. Anyway,” Ten starts to sway and steadies himself by holding onto Sicheng’s shoulder. “ _Anyway_. I’m sure he’ll tell you next weekend or whatever. Come on, don’t look so miserable. He’ll be home soon.”

 

𝚫

        

Talking about problems is supposed to make them go away. He’s pretty sure of that. Isn’t that what the whole point of therapy is? Right. So Sicheng feels pretty confident in this new decision of his. He’s suitably certain that whatever his feelings are for Yuta, they’re just growing stronger and he requires someone who actually knows what emotions are to help him sort this out. 

Sicheng figures that the best way to say it is to casually slip it in when Taeyong doesn’t notice. He’s gone over it in his mind and it makes the most sense. He’s part-way through assembling a Dyna kite and the diamond-shaped nylon covers the floor. His brow furrows in concentration as he starts to form the structural base of the kite, when Sicheng decides to try out this whole ‘talking’ thing.

“I think I have feelings for Yuta.”

Taeyong nearly snaps the fibreglass rod in his hands, and stares down in horror at how deformed it is now. “I almost ruined my kite, Sicheng. That wasn’t very considerate of you.”

Sicheng purses his lips. “Not my intention. I apologize.”

He doesn’t stop working on the kite however. He’s bent down on his knees, and attaches the rod across the width of the kite, humming a tune to himself. When that’s done, he takes the next rod and lines it vertically. Sicheng wonders if Taeyong is deliberately punishing him.

“Taeyong,” Sicheng says after some time.

“Yes?” He’s smoothing out the fabric of the kite now. It’s a most pretty orange, like the colour of the daisies in the flower boxes outside. As far as kites go, this one isn’t particularly spectacular nor is it fast, but it looks aesthetically pleasing, and that’s enough to justify a purchase.

“Did you hear what I said?” Sicheng asks, feeling more and more foolish by the moment.

“Oh, I did,” Taeyong replies, and looks up at Sicheng. “I was waiting for you to add something to it. Didn’t we already discuss this a few months ago?”

“We did not!” Sicheng says outraged.

Taeyong’s focus switches back to the kite and Sicheng gives up. He goes back to the one he’s currently repairing, and tries to ignore his own thoughts, measuring each length of rod multiple times, filling his head with numbers. It’s ninety centimeters down, and a hundred and ten across, he needs to fasten the line—

“What changed?” Taeyong finally asks.

“Nothing changed,” Sicheng says. His voice is soft. “I just don’t know how much more of this I can take. I think about him all the time. I thought since summer passed it would be easier but it isn’t. It’s just worse, because I miss him even more.”

He doesn’t say anything about Yuta’s job offer. Doesn’t feel like it’s his place to. But what he can say is his own feelings, his own thoughts, and if he’s going to give honesty to Taeyong, he’s going to be indiscriminate in it.

“I spend the whole week living for the weekend because I get to see him again,” Sicheng admits and now, Taeyong tosses the fibreglass rods aside and throws his arms around Sicheng’s neck and hugs him.

They don’t hug often. They’re both aware that Sicheng doesn’t enjoy being touched by people who aren’t called Yuta, and Taeyong has also seen Sicheng shove his elbow into someone’s face before, so he knows the fate that befalls those that don’t obey that first rule. But Taeyong appears to forego all safety in lieu of holding Sicheng tightly. And Sicheng can’t deny that it feels nice to just let Taeyong lighten that burden on his heart.

“Are you going to tell him?” Taeyong asks after receding, knowing that Sicheng’s boundaries are well-defined and prolonging that hug might be detrimental to his health.

“No,” Sicheng says. “No, you know I won’t. And you know _why_ too, you know how I broke his heart the first time. I’m not hurting him anymore.”

“Sicheng, that was years ago,” Taeyong says warningly.

“That doesn’t change how much it affected him,” Sicheng says softly. “He wouldn’t even look me in the eye for months, and when he did, he just looked so _sad_. I can never see that again. Yuta wouldn’t survive.” Maybe Sicheng wouldn’t either.

“I can get why you’re nervous but I don’t think that’s something you need to be worried about,” Taeyong sighs. “You know he adores you.”

“That doesn’t mean he loves me.”

Because that’s the fact that hangs over Sicheng’s head like a blade. Sicheng isn’t a fool. He knows Yuta cares for him, he knows that Yuta ‘adores’ him, but that is not love, that is not something permanent and it’s not as intense as the own storm of emotions that rages inside the cage of his ribs.

Taeyong grits his teeth and seems to consider before he speaks. “Sicheng, do you remember when me and Yuta broke up?”

Sicheng’s eyes snap up. “Oh, Taeyong, do you still have feelings—”

“No!” Taeyong shakes his head. “God, no, not at all, not for years, it wouldn’t even matter, I’m with—” he pauses, seeming to think better of continuing that sentence. “I don’t think of him in that way anymore. We were never serious. You know that.”

“Then, why would you bring up when you broke up?”

“Well, you never let me finish,” Taeyong says mildly.

Sicheng feels suitably chastised. “I apologize. Yes, I remember that. You called me on the phone to tell me.”

“You’re right about that. That’s when I told you. That’s not _when_ it happened,” Taeyong corrects.

“If it wasn’t then, then when? It couldn’t have been too long ago from that day, because like a week earlier we still were flying kites at the park and ran into Yuta.” Sicheng remembers that incident far too clearly.

“Yeah,” Taeyong says, and that’s all that really needs to be said.

 

𝚫

 

Sicheng remembers that day fairly clearly, if just because it wasn’t every Thursday that he broke someone’s nose.

It was Yuta’s fault. That was a fact agreed upon by all parties present, and if necessary, that was the defense he was prepared to use in court. It never proved necessary because Yuta didn’t try and sue him, but nonetheless, Sicheng did bother to Google assault laws in his bed that night.              

Back then, the kites he and Taeyong had were much less exciting. To present day Sicheng, that is. Back then, he thought it was the most amazing thing he ever laid his eyes on. It was made of actual nylon, not plastic or cloth, and he spent so long tracing his fingers up and down the indigo fabric. He and Taeyong had devoted their time to looking at it rather than flying it.

It was a Delta kite, fast, faster than they’d ever had before, and Sicheng was amazed at the way it sliced through the sky. The pair were transfixed, Taeyong’s grip on the handles were ironclad. And then, he saw his boyfriend.

Sicheng had met Yuta before, and had a fairly neutral-to-positive opinion about him. It wasn’t as strong as his opinion about kites which was at 100% fucking positive, and was the reason why he merely took the reins from Taeyong and let him do whatever couples do when they run into each other.

And then, the thing is, the Sicheng of present day knows Yuta loves to jog, and he loves to jog around the park. But the Sicheng of that Thursday did not know this, and also did not know how to control his kite very well either. He could hardly be blamed, it was the first time he had such a vessel of speed and precision in his hands, and if he started to show off, it was only because he proved himself worthy.

But the Yuta of that Thursday was jogging, and fast as well, and that was when Taeyong saw him, and gave the handles to Sicheng. These events occurred very fast. The sudden change in pressure caused the kite to skyrocket down, dipping like it was falling from heaven. And this was a kite that was flying very fast, at speeds of easily A Lot kilometers per hour, and really, Sicheng did try and save the situation, tugging in at the handles.

But that just made it worse. And it flew down faster.

Right into the face of Yuta, too much momentum from his jog to stop himself from getting the sharp tip of a kite slicing through his face.

He didn’t die. He didn’t even scream. Taeyong screamed, Taeyong screamed and instantly ran towards him, frantically shaking him. But Yuta just seemed shocked more than anything else. At a closer examination, it appeared that the extent of the kite’s damage was his nose, now a swirling mass of sticky red blood. Taeyong had grown faint.

“Yuta, are you okay?” He asked, voice reaching higher and higher pitches.

“Yeah,” Yuta mumbled, most likely on account of the blood currently spilling over his face. “It’s fine—”

“Do you need anything?” Taeyong asked the man who currently had a broken nose and thus could not speak very well.

“Taeyong!” Sicheng rebuked. “Can you run back and get a towel or something? I’ll stay here with him. When he’s cleaned up, we can take him to the first aid office.”

“Yes, right, okay!” Taeyong called, and ran off vaguely into the distance. Sicheng shook his head, and frowned as he gazed upon the ruins of Yuta’s face. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his handkerchief, and without further question, tipped Yuta’s head back and covered his nose.

Yuta mumbled something and Sicheng tutted.

“Stop talking. Blood is just going to go into your mouth. Do you want blood in your mouth? No. So be quiet.”

Yuta’s good at following instructions, if nothing else, and doesn’t say anything else. A few moments later, Sicheng gently taps Yuta’s head and he tilts forward. The handkerchief is soaked through, and Sicheng tosses it to the ground, taking out some of the tissues he brings with because after all, it’s hay fever season, and he won’t be caught off guard.

“How much does it hurt?” Sicheng asked. “And yes, you can talk again now.”

“Not at all,” Yuta said, and then Sicheng deliberately placed a little extra pressure on where he’s cleaning and Yuta squeaked in pain. “Okay, it hurts a little. Don’t do that.”

“Do you need an ambulance?” Sicheng asked, trying to disguise his amusement at how quickly Yuta crumbled.

“Of course not, it’s a broken nose, not kidney failure,” Yuta scoffed. And then dropped his composure for a moment to whisper, “Does it look bad?”

Sicheng wasn’t a liar, so when he’d finished wiping the rest of Yuta’s face he gazed at him critically. He still looked rather attractive, somehow, underneath all the residual blood and the unnatural skew of his nose.

“You don’t look awful.”

It’s not a compliment. It was objectively not a compliment. There’s absolutely no logical reason as to why Yuta’s lips curved upwards, beaming at Sicheng. It’s a smile that’s full of shining teeth and it casts his whole face in a pleasing glow, and Yuta had no right to look so happy when blood still trickled out of his nostrils.

“I’m glad to hear that,” Yuta said, and ran a hand through his hair in what must be an unconscious response, and the second his arm brushes past his nose, he yelps again.

This time, it was Sicheng that smiled. Yuta’s just something to behold, something amusing, and it’s impossible not to enjoy witnessing it.

Sicheng does come to the realization that he is to blame for the current disaster of his face and guilt settles on the surface of his skin. He figures he should apologize, but also doesn’t want to. Because he was there first, he was just flying his kite, and it’s Yuta’s fault. “You shouldn’t have been jogging there.”

Yuta blinked in surprise. “Sorry?”

“You wouldn’t have gotten hit if you hadn’t been there,” Sicheng said and in a way, he can sort of understand if Yuta ends up punching him. He can feel himself being absolutely awful, but was unable to stop it from happening.

“I’m sure you’re right about that,” Yuta said and doesn’t stop smiling. “That was a pretty cool kite. I didn’t get to see much of it before it launched into my face, but the seconds before it? Looked fucking awesome.”

Sicheng flushed. “Thanks. It’s a Delta.” He doesn’t want to voice his gratitude to his friend’s boyfriend who he just injured. It’s weird. “Where’s Taeyong?”

Yuta blinked as if struggling to recall the name. “Yeah, where is he?” He sighed. “It’s fine, I’ll just walk to the nurse myself and meet him on the way. I’m mostly fine. The bleeding’s stopped, thanks for that.”

“You’re welcome,” Sicheng said, and then paused. He still doesn’t say sorry. “It’s the least I could do. I hope that everything goes fine at the nurse.”

“Don’t worry about me, I’m really tough. I take my vitamins _everyday_ ,” Yuta insisted, and grinned that blinding grin again. It’s horrible, it puts the sun to shame. “You’re Sicheng, right?”

“Yeah. Why do you ask, are you trying to get my name for the court summons?”

Yuta laughed, and then immediately winced, as a fresh stream of crimson spilled out of his nose. He blindly reaches for the tissue in Sicheng’s hand and shoves it over his nose. When he spoke, it was muffled. “I just wanted to make sure.”

“Stop talking,” Sicheng said tiredly. “Just go to the nurse. I see Taeyong in the horizon.”

He watched Yuta’s figure disappear, but not before inexplicably waving. Sicheng can’t say he felt particularly regretful after the incident, especially because as Taeyong later updated him, he’d be fine in two weeks. More than anything, Sicheng mourned his poor bent kite, and got to work repairing it. And that was the last he saw of Yuta for quite a while. Understandably so, he and Taeyong had just broken up after that.

 

𝚫

 

“It wasn’t after that,” Taeyong says, staring down at the orange nylon in front of him.

“What?”

“It wasn’t after that. It was on that day.”

The day that Sicheng broke Yuta’s nose and didn’t apologize? That day?

“It was literally on that day that he broke up with me. He said that he didn’t really think we were that compatible with each other and that we would be better off as friends,” Taeyong describes it with the tone that people do when describing something that hurt at the time but doesn’t anymore. Distantly. The pain isn’t there anymore, but the memory lingers. “He was clearly right, but the point of it, is that it didn’t happen when I told you it did. I needed time to process alone before I was ready to let you know.”

There’s something uncurling in Sicheng’s heart, petals flying upwards, but he wants to crush it with his ribcage. “Maybe he was just delirious from the painkillers.”

Taeyong stares at him. “Sicheng, he wasn’t _delirious from the painkillers_. The nurse gave him a fucking ibuprofen, for one, he was _fine_. No, Sicheng, what I’m trying to tell you is that you literally flew a kite into his face and he was still instantly enamoured with you. I never had a chance to compete, and he already knew that, and let me down with dignity.”

The flower blooms. “Are you saying he broke up with you… because of me?”

“Yeah I am,” Taeyong states. “Sicheng, he’s loved you since he laid eyes on you. Whatever you do can never change that. And that includes flying a fucking kite into his face. And that includes telling him that you regret what you said years ago, and that you want him now.”

 

𝚫

 

“Hey, I just wanted to ask if your boyfriend was okay after the whole nose incident?” Sicheng asked. He figured a phone conversation would be the best, just half a minute of pain and then he’d never have to bring it up again. It’s not like he was doing much right now anyway, just solving the last few equations before his lecture tomorrow and he was basically done. Friday’s were always his easiest day.

Taeyong was so quiet that Sicheng thought the call had dropped but then he spoke. “Yeah, he’s fine. Nurse said it would heal in a few weeks.”

“Okay. Cool. Sorry about that,” Sicheng said, because he’d apologize to Taeyong. That’s fair. He wouldn’t apologize to Yuta though. Because it was his fault.

“It’s fine. Did he seem normal to you, by the way?”

“How would I be able to tell?” Sicheng said. “I barely know him.”

“Well, yes, but was he okay?”

“Just smiled a lot. I don’t know if that’s normal behaviour,” Sicheng recounted, sitting down at his desk and checking off his daily planner. Graduation seemed like a distant dream.

“Yeah. Alright, nevermind. Have a goodnight, Sicheng, we’ll chat again.”  

 

𝚫

 

Yuta’s doing that thing again, where his smile is so broad that Sicheng can feel the cracks on his own lips. Sicheng likes that smile, but it’s not just enough to like it anymore, he loves it and the intensity of how he feels about something like a smile is terrifying. He’s never had such intense feelings before and the unfamiliarity of it all crawls under Sicheng’s skin. But despite it all, Yuta doesn’t stop smiling. How can he just look at him like that, like just Sicheng’s existence is enough?

It’s not. Yuta needs to want more, he needs to stop settling, stop settling for that stupid job in that stupid school and needs to stop settling for his roommate with all his feelings and being too stupid to express all of them.

Yuta is just so warm, so bright, so talented in all the ways that Sicheng is not. Where Sicheng struggles to befriend the people he’s known for years, Yuta is absolutely magnetic, prompting devoting from strangers. Where Sicheng hides, Yuta shines, being unapologetically himself, being open about what he thinks and feels, and that is something Sicheng cannot even begin to imagine, not when he can barely name his own emotions. Yuta could do so much more, Sicheng sees the potential in him like he’s a case file at his company. He could even plot Yuta on a graph, see his growth, see his potential and Sicheng is skilled enough at his job to know that this is the path for him, this is the one he needs to take. Sicheng has seen the way his soccer team idolizes him, and how much Yuta adores them. He could do so much more as a teacher, and—

And Sicheng is fairly certain that part of Yuta’s hesitation comes from not wanting to leave this house for a year. Sicheng feels awful for relishing in that, being glad that Yuta doesn’t want to abandon him. Love, it seems, has a very ugly side to it, and Sicheng hates the way it’s making him feel, clawing all over him until it’s like a second skin.

It’s not fair. It’s not fair that Yuta’s life could continue on and progress to new heights and he’s holding himself back for Sicheng — and it’s definitely not fair that that’s what Sicheng _wants_ him to do, with every inch of his selfish body. 

“You okay, Sicheng?” Yuta asks, shutting the refrigerator door. He always drinks straight out of the milk carton, and when accused, promptly states the time wasted washing out a glass could be better spent curing cancer or watching the latest match of the Champions League. Sicheng hates it — it’s why he always keeps out a bottle of milk especially for Yuta on the Friday night already.

He’s adjusted his life around this person who isn’t even here half the time.

 _More than half_ , he corrects himself. It’s a bitter rectification.

“I’m fine. Tired,” Sicheng says, leaning back in his seat. “Work is a lot.”  A lot of what? A lot of lies? He’s finished his last report on Friday evening. Before Yuta came. Of course he did, he always gets his things done on a Friday so he can have the Saturday and Sunday free for Yuta. Sicheng didn’t often consider how much he based his life around Yuta until now, as he considers what it might be like if it was different.

He’s heard of people who live for the weekend, who dread their jobs so much they anxiously await the tail end of the week, chasing after it like children after runaway balloons. Sicheng’s never been like that. He loves his career and he loves the job he built up around it.

And yet, he’s just as bad. No. He’s always been above average, that’s the thing. So he’s not just bad, he’s _worse_. He runs even further for a balloon that’s flying even higher. He exists only for the 26.2% that Yuta is with him. That’s even poorer odds than the people who wait for Friday.

“That sucks,” Yuta says, bringing the milk carton to his mouth. His lips stain white. He moves closer to Sicheng, an arm reaching out for the back of his neck, that affectionate gesture he always does and Sicheng sidesteps like it’s a guillotine.

“Hey, hey, what’s that about?” Yuta asks. He’s pouting now and it looks ridiculous when he still has milk dribbling out of his lips. “Why don’t you want me to touch you?”

Sicheng cringes at the word. This never used to be an issue, Yuta’s casual affection was just part of who he is, and it’s something that Sicheng has grown to love but now it’s like every time he has Yuta’s hand on him, it’s smothering.

Smothering might not be the best word. _Burning._ It’s not enough just to have Yuta throw an arm around him, not when the alternative could be being pinned down on that uncomfortable couch they both purchased with their dreams of sleek modernity. It’s not enough to have Yuta pull on his sleeve, not when he could be holding his jaw and leaning into kiss him with those lips that still have milk on them.

“Couldn’t you just use a glass?” Sicheng sighs. His heart is thundering. He’s not sure why. Maybe he’s dying. That would be nice, he thinks. He’s got his affairs in order, he has a will he drafted up, most of his money goes to his parents like the good son he is, he’s given Taeyong his kite collection, and the rest goes to Yuta—

“I didn’t realize that still bothered you,” Yuta says, his eyes wide with confusion. “You haven’t brought it up in ages.”

“It does. It always bothers me.”

Yuta puts the milk down on the counter. “Okay. Alright, I’ll use a glass but, you don’t need to look at me like that.” He leans against the fridge door. “The milk’s already almost done anyway, and I know you open up one after I leave.”

From this angle, Sicheng can surmise there’s perhaps less than a quarter left in the bottle, just enough for Yuta’s evening coffee. He’s memorized his entire schedule. He knows every part of it down to a margin of a minute of error. He’s become so involved in Yuta’s life, so _tangled_ , it’s like kite strings knotted together.

“Yuta, I don’t think this is working anymore.” By _this,_ Sicheng tries to decide what he means. Perhaps it means the milk.

It isn’t.

Sicheng means that fucking awful feeling crawling through his veins everytime he even looks at Yuta that makes it impossible to breathe, he means the way his heart just falls down from his ribcage to the floor everytime he hears Yuta leave on a Sunday night. Because it’s almost that time now, and Sicheng doesn’t know how much more of this he can take. He’s not like Taeyong, whose heart has been smashed so many times that it’s indestructible. Sicheng’s heart is just what it is: this lumpy muscle that limply beats, and it’s just unfair that Yuta can just take control of it, to hold dominion over it.

“Sicheng, what do you mean?” Yuta asks, eyes widening in concern. “You’ve been off for a while now, is everything okay?”

And Sicheng knows it’s not okay but he can’t tell him that because he’s already burnt this bridge three years earlier and he can’t stand at the end of this chasm of ashes for much longer. He had his chance. And he lost it.

But Yuta has so much potential. If he was a graph, Sicheng can see the upward trend, can almost trace it in the air using his fingertips. And the only thing holding him back is Sicheng himself.

“I think you should move out,” Sicheng says, and he wonders why it hurts to breathe.

Yuta stares, jaw hanging slack. His eyes are focused, attempting to process his words that hang in the air between them. “If this is about something as simple as milk—”

“It’s not— It’s not about milk, it’s not about that, it’s about everything. I…” Sicheng says, smoothing his hands on the counter. He inhales, trying to find courage that doesn’t exist. “I can’t live like this anymore, with you here on the weekends.”

“Why not?” Yuta asks, understandably confused. Of course he’s confused, this is the first time Sicheng has brought up anything like this.

“The rent,” is what Sicheng ends up stammering out, and when he realizes that’s a reasonable excuse he sinks his nails into it like it’s a liferaft. “It’s too difficult to manage the rent without a fulltime roommate. I’ve been struggling for a while and I can’t anymore.”

It’s a lie, it’s an obvious lie. Sicheng makes enough money to afford an apartment twice this big. He chooses to live here, he chooses to live with Yuta, everything he does is just a combination of poor, poor choices.

“Sicheng,” Yuta says, his eyes full of emotion Sicheng can’t read. “Why didn’t you tell me you were having financial problems? We could sit down and sort it out.”

Oh _no_ ,, Yuta’s about to be considerate and that’s really not when Sicheng needs right now—

Yuta thinks to himself for a moment. “Look, let’s sit down with all the bills and figure this out. I don’t pay for the water, and we all know I take twenty hour showers, so that’s something I could start chipping in towards.” Yuta pauses. He starts to pace around the room. Of course, he does, when Yuta’s stressed he’s all nervous energy, he’s always moving around. He catches Sicheng staring and flashes him a grin filled with worry. “We don’t need cable either, you barely watch TV and all I care about is the sports channel. We can cancel that—”

“Yuta, no.”

And there it is. There’s that hurt flashing across Yuta’s face, splitting across his smile like a punch to the teeth.

“Sicheng,” Yuta says. His voice is hollow. “Are you being serious?”

“Yeah.”

Yuta barks out a humourless laugh. “You actually want me to leave? Like, you don’t want to live with me anymore?”

“Yeah.” His words taste like shards of glass.

He sounds so unaffected, like the fact that they built up a life around each other for three years means nothing. That it was just this thing that didn’t even matter to Sicheng. Nothing could be further from the truth, of course, but no, Sicheng’s tone doesn’t betray that. He was told once by Ten that his voice was a baritone — he wondered if that meant the particular note doesn’t possess the capability to contain emotion at all.

“I don’t know what to say, Sicheng.” Yuta runs a hand through his hair. “I want to sit down and talk about this but I just… you don’t change your mind, though. Do you?” Yuta stares at Sicheng, and his gaze pierces through his skin. “You never change your mind. I know this about you.”

Sicheng feels like he’s back to three years ago, back to telling Yuta there’s no chance for them. That’s right, isn’t it? Sicheng never changes his mind. This is exactly what he deserves.

“I just think it’ll be the best for both of us,” Sicheng says, after he remembers how to breathe. “You spend so much time travelling back and forth just to come here for two days, it exhausts you, and there’s no point in it.”

“There’s no point?” Yuta repeats, voice raised. He’s angry. He’s angry at Sicheng. This is what Sicheng caused. “What do you _mean?_ I come here to see you.”

It hurts. This hurts.

“I’m not worth that,” Sicheng says despairingly.

“That’s not for you to decide. Sicheng, you can kick me out if that’s what you want to do, but don’t for a second pretend that I wanted to leave or that living here was a burden. It’s always been the damn highlight of my life, ever since I got that job.”

And then he’s gone. He brushes past Sicheng like he’s nothing, and his room door slams shut a moment later. It’s ten minutes before he reappears, and at first Sicheng isn’t sure why, he hadn’t expected to see him again — but no, he’s ignoring him. He grabs a box from the closet and returns to his room. To pack.

Sicheng pretends not to notice how red his eyes are. It’s hard to pretend. It’s always hard to pretend.

Whatever that point of no return is, Sicheng thinks he may have avoided it — but it’s hard to be sure when his heart doesn’t seem entirely whole anymore.

 

𝚫

 

Sicheng drowns himself in numbers. Being a diligent employee is something he prides himself on, and he has all those Employee of the Month certificates to prove that, but it’s starting to grow ridiculous. There’s an upcoming merger between two companies and Sicheng is singlehandedly managing the entire acquisition. No one asked him to. In fact, Jongin more than once remarked that this is the kind of project he’d assign multiple people to. Sicheng refuses the help — and his standard of work is always flawless, his reports timely, and Jongin can’t really stop him from doing _more_ than he’s paid to do.

He’s even gotten an office key now, since he works weekends. Kun offers to install the necessary software on his laptop so he could work from his couch but the whole reason for this is that he doesn’t _want_ to go home. Too many walls. Way more walls than necessary. Surely must have violated some construction code on account of how many walls there are.

 They haven’t spoken since, him and Yuta. It’s been roughly two weeks, and they haven’t said a word to each other. Sicheng literally can not remember the last time this happened. Well — there was one time. When they were still in the first apartment, when they were still at university, (when Yuta still had his heart broken), Sicheng went back to China for a few weeks during their winter vacation. A combination of being excessively busy, a poor cellphone reception, and brutal timezones contributed to a distinct lack of conversation between them, and it was the longest they’ve stopped talking.

And then, one day, wedged between a cousin’s wedding ceremony and reception, Sicheng carved out a section of time and just called Yuta’s number, half-expecting him not to pick up. It was some ridiculous hour of the night anyway. There was just the extended dial tone for so long and Sicheng was about to hang up when he heard a raspy voice.

“Hey Sicheng, is that you?” Followed by a series of loud yawns.

He denied that he had been sleeping, denied that he had work the next morning, and spent the next ten minutes asking Sicheng about everything that had happened while he was home, making sure to clarify if he’d been eating and sleeping enough. And then he hung up.That was ten days and several oceans apart of silence before Yuta woke up from sleep just to hear his voice again.

And this has been fifteen days and counting, right now.

Truthfully, Sicheng hasn’t really spoken to any of his friends, even Taeyong. They went out for coffee a week ago and did not linger any longer, and it seemed like Taeyong was preoccupied to begin with, compulsively checking his phone.

Instead of friends, the person who Sicheng has been speaking to was Mr. Briefcase. Mr. Briefcase was the investment banker on behalf of whatever company Sicheng wasn’t getting paid by, the other half of the merger, and therefore didn’t actually matter. His name was a meaningless extra. Details were unnecessary. He doesn’t care about the words, he cares about the _numbers_ , and everytime Mr. Briefcase walks in with his vacant expression, Sicheng imagines his mouth as a slot machine. It makes their conversations slightly more bearable.

Mr. Briefcase has been coming around a lot lately. As fast as Sicheng works on this acquisition is as fast as Mr. Briefcase replies, which leads Sicheng to come to the conclusion that Mr. Briefcase must not have a life. Sicheng doesn’t feel like he has any right to judge, however, not when he woke up at 7am on a Sunday to go to work in a empty building.

Thankfully, the building is occupied today as it an actual work day, and Kun pops his head around the corner of the office. “There’s a Mr. Moon here to see you.”

Sicheng gazes up. “ _Who_?”

“Mr. Moon,” Kun repeats in a voice full of patience.

“That’s not a real name.”

Kun’s smile is fixed. “It is a real name.”

“It’s not a fucking real name.”

“It is, actually, it’s mine,” and Mr. Briefcase waves from the other side of the door. He’s dressed in a tie so beige that it seems to set new standards for the colour. He doesn’t even appear offended, plastering on the same empty smile. It never reaches his eyes.

 _Cha-ching_ goes the slot machine in Sicheng’s mind.

“I do apologize profusely,” Sicheng says, standing upwards and bowing his head once he realigns his thoughts.

“Oh, it’s understandable. You must know me just by Taeil,” Mr. Briefcase says, and sure, Sicheng goes with that. “We had a meeting scheduled for four?”

“Right, yes. Absolutely, I’ll meet you in the conference room immediately,” Sicheng says, trying not to feel flustered. He hadn’t realized the day went by so fast, the last time he checked the clock was a little after two. Time has been acting strange as of late.

Kun stays when Taeil leaves and a look of concern crosses his face. “Are you okay, Sicheng? If you want, I can sit with you in the meeting and help out?”

“No, that won’t be necessary,” Sicheng says and gulps down half a litre of water. “I’m fine.” He opens his drawer and swallows four breath mints as well. “I just don’t think that Mr. Moon is a real name.”

Kun adjusts his glasses. “Are you sure, Sicheng, I’m just a bit worried…”

“Don’t even worry about it,” Sicheng says. He applies peach chapstick to his lips, grabs his files and firmly pats Kun on the shoulder as he walks out.

Mr. Briefcase — well, Taeil, whatever — is seated at his usual spot, his laptop open, and he grins at Sicheng. “Shall we resume where we left off?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “My client is not very happy about the share percentage. He believes he deserves at least 27% as well as a flat payment.”

“27%? Why 27%? That’s such an odd number. Why not 25 or 30%?” Sicheng asks.

Taeil’s eyes widen. “Can you give me 30%?”

“No, not at all, your client is delusional, there’s no way he’s worth that much.” Sicheng sighs. “Look, I have this graph, give me a moment—” He shuffles through his binder and does not find the paper he’s looking for, but does find a receipt for a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder, 20 chicken nuggets and a Coke Light. 

“Maybe I can help,” Taeil says kindly. “I’m sure I have that same graph, you printed it out last night. My assistant will be here in a moment with it.”

“Your assistant?” Sicheng says.

“He’s a new hire, just for the admin aspect. I can hardly keep my head straight with all these numbers,” Taeil laughs and then breaks off to stare adoringly into Sicheng’s eyes. “I’m not straight, though. By the way.”

“That’s nice,” Sicheng says.

The afternoon sunlight streams through the blinds and Sicheng wants to close them, bathe the room in darkness like it’s a dungeon, but doesn’t think Taeil would be particularly keen on that idea — and furthermore, Sicheng isn’t willing to get out of this chair for it.

“Let me show you the mockup contract Legal made,” Sicheng says, and at least he definitely has this document. Most likely because he didn’t print it himself. He pulls out two copies, one for Taeil and one for himself and for a moment, they both look through them. The door opens and another set of footsteps enter, sitting down next to Taeil. Sicheng doesn’t look up until they speak.

“Whatcha reading?”

“It’s the mockup contract for the merger barring all share and brand acquisition related content,” Sicheng mutters and then looks up and finds himself staring at very bright and familiar eyes.

“Oh, that’s pretty cool. My favourite book is The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” Ten nods.

Sicheng stares. Ten grins.

“I don’t know if I’m happy with the wording on page 36, paragraph 4? It makes it seem like my client is getting bailed out of bankruptcy,” Mr. Briefcase says, breaking the silence.

“That’s because that’s exactly what’s happening,” Sicheng mutters under his breath, and then looks up at Taeil. “Okay, we can talk to Legal about changing that, I’ll make a note of it.”

“You too, Ten, make a note of it,” Taeil says and then gasps. “I never introduced you! Sicheng, this is my assistant, Ten.”

“We’ve met,” Sicheng says through gritted teeth.

“Oh really? That’s delightful! How do you two know each other, have you worked together before?” Taeil asks, face lighting up. Ten’s eyes widen and he starts frantically shaking his head.

Clearly, this isn’t a prank. Ten is wearing a suit, possibly for the first time in his life, and he came prepared with a well-worn notebook and his own laptop. Taeil does not seem the kind of person to go along with a gag. For whatever reason, he is legitimately employed, and no matter how curious Sicheng might be, he’s not so evil as to cause him to lose his job by recounting the time Ten tried to deepthroat a sword.

“It was an office party,” Sicheng mutters. “Doesn’t matter, good to see you have help. Do write that down Ten, I’d love to have copies of your notes later.”

Ten exhales. “No problemo, Mr…” Ten pauses, and he’s clearly attempting to remember Sicheng’s last name. “Sir.”

Sicheng bites on his lip, suppressing whatever mixture of mirth and annoyance bubbles in his throat and attempts to focus on the text in front of him. “What do you think of the leakage clause on page fortytwo, the footnote?”

        Ten is really not qualified for this. That becomes abundant the further into the meeting they go. At one point, he leans into Taeil’s ear, and inquires how to spell ‘fiscal’ in a very loud whisper. Later, he opens the window and spends a solid five minutes gazing at the pigeons on the landing.

In a very unsurprising turn of events, Ten knows nothing about finance. Sicheng supposes that he can’t be too critical, he barely remembers the name of the company his client is busy acquiring — but also, Sicheng knows how to do his job. Ten does not. His entire working relationship with Taeil seems to be the latter ordering him to write things down while Ten beams.

“If you don’t mind me asking before we wrap up,” Sicheng says, eyes fixed on the digital clock overhead, one minute from five o’clock, “How on Earth did you end up hiring Ten?”

Ten, currently busy packing up his laptop, stares up at Sicheng like a deer caught in headlights.

“Oh,” Taeil says, as if expecting Sicheng to ask something different. “Oh, he was just recommended by a temp agency. Why? Think he isn’t up to scratch?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Sicheng says, as diplomatic as possible. “Is it possible I could pester a moment of Ten’s time? It’s just been so long and I’d love to catch up with him.”

“I go home with Mr. Moon, though, I really can’t stay,” Ten says quickly, shoving everything in his bag. “We can talk some other time, I’m certain—”

“I’ll drop you off myself. You need to go to the bus station, don’t you?” Sicheng says.

Ten seems to accept his fate. He walks out of the office like he’s going towards his execution. He gives Taeil a very prolonged handshake in the parking lot — and then Taeil turns to Sicheng like he’s going in for a hug and Sicheng sidesteps behind the pillar.

“I’ll be in contact when Legal is done with the document,” Sicheng says and waves from a comfortable and intimate distance of fifteen meters.  “Have a lovely evening Taeil, and I’ll take good care of your assistant.”

“Where is he?” Taeil asks, scanning the parking garage. “I swear he was right behind me a second ago…”

“I’ll find him,” Sicheng mutters. “Safe ride home.”

Sicheng isn’t too worried about where Ten is. The building where he works in is strictly controlled by access card, and the underground parking lot cannot be entered or exited without one. Ten is stuck on this floor.

Sicheng leans against his car. “Ten, just come out. You’re not going to avoid me forever. I didn’t get you fired. I expect an explanation.”

“You know, you’ve no right to be so nasty to me,” Ten says, voice echoing in the empty garage. “You don’t really have a high horse to stand on.”

“Those are two different expressions. I either don’t have a leg to stand on, or I should get off my high horse.”

“Yeah, well, your horse has no fucking legs.” Ten appears from behind a pillar, and his eyebrows are furrowed in contempt. “What the hell happened to Yuta? What did you _do_?”

At the mention of Yuta, Sicheng flusters. He wasn’t stupid, he knew the topic of Yuta would be brought up, and he knew he’d most likely have to explain himself — but he also imagined that he’d have the luxury of bringing up the topic at his own convenience. Not yelled at halfway across a parking garage.

“Okay, you have no right to ask me about that when you’re currently masquerading as an investment banker. How the hell did you get hired by Taeil?” Sicheng demands. Ten leans against the opposite side of his car, hands clasped together on the roof.

“I’m not pretending to be an investment banker. I _am_ an administrative assistant,” Ten says, slower, as if that will make it more sensible. “Look, if it makes you feel any better, I had no idea that he was working with you, I assure you if I did, I wouldn’t have taken the job.” Ten pauses. “Okay I would have but I don’t know, I’d have worn a disguise today. Maybe a moustache.”

“You _have_ a job,” Sicheng all but cries. “I know you do! You’re a drama teacher! Why are you working for Taeil?”

“I got fired from KFC,” Ten says, sighing. “Customers kept asking me for advice on what they should order and I just told them to go to the McDonald’s down the street.”

Sicheng’s brain cells start exploding like popcorn. “But you’re still employed at Bishop’s, right?”

“Obviously.”

Yuta had mentioned once that the school plays directed by Ten always had a most interesting flair. His all-male production of Little Women was said to be bewitching and only mildly controversial. They brought in a crowd, if nothing else, and Sicheng had considered attending the next one. So clearly, he was a competent drama teacher if nothing else.

“Why do you need so many different jobs at all the same time? What happened to the lounge singing?”

“That’s only on Friday nights,” Ten pouts. “And it’s for the reason that everyone has jobs. I need money.”

“Ten,” Sicheng says and tries to remain as calm as possible. “Do you need some help budgeting? You wouldn’t have to work as much if you just made some lifestyle changes. One of my coworkers has majored in economics and I’m certain if I call in a favour, he’d be happy to sit down with you and work out something—” 

  “Look, it’s not because I’m burning my money in a fireplace, I just…” and then exhaustion falls over Ten like a dark cloud. He moves off the car and sits down on the ground, his head in his hands. “God, it’s a mess.”

“Do you owe someone money?” Sicheng asks, and he’s almost cautious to hear the answer. He would now tentatively refer to Ten as a friend — he’s not however, someone that Sicheng would be willing to donate large amounts of money to avoid having his legs broken. 

Ten looks up at Sicheng like he’s suggesting something ridiculous. Sicheng had never even realized the dark rings that outline his eyes. “No, not at all. God, no I’m not on the run from a loan shark or whatever you think is going on here. No, I just…” he hesitates. “My boo.”

“Your boo?”

“My boo,” Ten confirms and there’s fondness in his voice. “We’ve been together two years now, but it’s been very rocky and I know I’m the reason to blame. I’ve been taking him for granted for a long time, and I’m trying to fix that.”

This is the most serious Sicheng has ever seen Ten. Gone is his twinkling eyes and his sharp grin — he just sits on the concrete, gazing down in despair.

“I want to let him know how much I care about him. I’ve been speaking to Yuta, a lot actually, and I’ve realized just how important my boo is to me. I don’t want to be without him, and I don’t want him to feel like I don’t appreciate him, because I _do_. I love him more than anything.”

The mention of Yuta’s name is like a thread that wraps around Sicheng’s throat. It doesn’t choke, but it reminds him. Reminds him that Yuta continues to support and help others, continues to brighten the world around him, even when Sicheng isn’t part of that world anymore. Tries to make things better with Ten’s ‘boo’, even if his own life has been derailed.

Ten makes eye contact with Sicheng. “I’m gonna marry him. I want to be with him forever, and I want to have a big wedding where everyone can see how much I adore him. I’ve been desperately trying to save up for a ring for so long, because it needs to be perfect. I know he loves rose quartz, and I’ve seen the most gorgeous one in this jewellery store near Bishop’s. They said they’d reserve it for me for three months. I’ll work myself to death if I have to, but I need to get him that ring.” There’s determination in his gaze. “I have to. I love him too much to let him go.”

If love was a graph, Ten would have passed the point of no return two part-time jobs ago. To be so devoted, to work three different jobs, just to be able to purchase that perfect ring to start their engagement? That was love. 

“Rose quartz is beautiful,” Sicheng says, unable to convey just how touched he is. “One of my friends adores the stone, wears a necklace with a shard in it all the time.”

The corners of Ten’s mouth curve upwards. “Yeah, yeah it is beautiful.”

“Ten, that’s really…” Sicheng fails to find the words. “That’s so _good_ of you.”

“It’s not even a question of being a good person. When you love someone that much, you just do it because you want to, because that’s how important they are. It’s difficult, yeah, but it would be more difficult being without him.”

Ten has no right to actually be clever for once.

“So, you know why I’m here,” Ten says, rather gently. “Mind telling me why Yuta hasn’t gone home for two weeks and spends all his time wallowing on his couch watching gore anime?”

Sicheng’s brow furrows. “Ten, did Yuta take the job?”

“Cool, so just ignore my questions I guess.” Ten pauses to let Sicheng answer, and he still doesn’t. “No, he didn’t. Sicheng, I don’t think he _wants_ to take the job, and I definitely don’t think he wants to feel like he’s being forced into it by you. I mean, if he did, does that sound like Yuta at all to you?”

No. No, it doesn’t. Yuta is so horribly stubborn, the kind to pull out Google in the middle of an argument even when he’s wrong, the kind to drive to another branch if the McDonald’s is out of ice cream, is the kind to scream in someone’s face until they start _listening_.

“I may have made something akin to a mistake,” Sicheng says.

“Do you want to tell me what the mistake is?” Ten asks.

“No.”

Ten hums. “Alright, that’s fair, because Yuta wouldn’t tell me the full story either. So, how about this, I’m going to guess what happens and you can let me know how wrong I am and we’ll take it from there? I think that’s reasonable.”

Sicheng makes a sort of vague grunt and Ten presses on.

“So, Yuta hasn’t gone home in two weeks, keeps aggressively poking his peas whenever we eat dinner together, and has been making the kids run ten extra laps at practise daily. He also refuses to talk about anything that isn’t soccer. I don’t even watch soccer but I can literally give you an entire rundown of Yuta’s team of choice.”

Sicheng’s nose wrinkles.

“I’m gonna take a stab in the dark and say that you said something very stupid but well-intentioned because you want Yuta to take the job and move forward with his career, and think that he was hesitant about the offer because it would mean he wouldn’t be able to live with you anymore. So you kicked him out and now you’re not talking to each other and you’re both miserable because of this.” Ten nods, thinking to himself. “I think that’s about it. How did I do?”

“You got most of the major points,” Sicheng says faintly. “How…?”

“Sicheng, you can’t just decide what you think is right for him. Like obviously.”

“But Ten, it’s better for him—”

Ten stands up.  “You don’t have any right to say that. You don’t know what he wants, and you can’t assume you do either.”

Somewhere between wanting the best for Yuta and thinking of him as just a graph, destined for an increase, Sicheng lost what it meant to love Yuta.

 “You should talk to him,” Ten stands up. “Speaking as someone who almost lost the person they care most about, I’d say you should probably tell Yuta before it’s too late.”

Ten’s right. For possibly the first time in his life, Ten is right. He needs to talk to Yuta. He knows that now, he _wants_ to talk to Yuta. But now he knows that he needs to, as well.

“Tell him what, exactly?” Sicheng asks.

“You’re a clever guy. I’m sure you’ll think of something,” Ten says, patting Sicheng on the shoulder. “And hey, Sicheng? When it all comes out, know that I would have told you, but it wasn’t my place to. Still, it’ll be great.” Ten’s eyes are sparkling.

Sicheng raises an eyebrow. “I don’t think I follow?”

Ten waves his hand. “Don’t worry about it. Genuinely though, you’re like a genius. What the fuck happened in that meeting? What do you even do?”

“I told you, I’m an investment banker,” Sicheng says, already sighing. “I work as a financial advisor to companies and their subsidiaries. My goal is to maximize profit within the framework of customer’s business model. I also facilitate mergers and acquisitions which is what I was doing up there.” 

“Oh, that’s pretty cool,” Ten says. “I thought your job was to sell prices.”

The car unlocks. “What do you mean sell prices?”

“You know, like you sell fifty bucks for only thirty?”

Sicheng stares. “Get in the fucking car, Ten, or you’re walking to the bus stop.”

 

𝚫

 

 

Taeyong isn’t in a good mood. This is a rare occurrence because Taeyong being sunny is more constant than the actual weather. It’s almost strange that he and Sicheng became such close friends when Sicheng views most smiles as being an unnecessary usage of energy while Taeyong draws happy faces on the bills he gives _back_ to the waiters.

But he’s in a bad mood today. He’s curled up in the couch, laptop open, and they’re shopping online together. They’re in the market for a new Sode kite after Taeyong’s met an unfortunate accident at the last kite festival, and Sicheng wouldn’t mind getting another one either, and invited Taeyong over to help him out.

That was, of course, before Sicheng realized that Taeyong not only brought with his laptop and coffee, but also a storm cloud.

“This internet is so slow, how do you even cope?” Taeyong hisses, slamming the F5 key so hard, it sounds out in the apartment.

“It’s not usually that bad,” Sicheng says carefully, and then decides better than to continue his sentence. Taeyong makes some indistinct noise of dislike and sips his coffee. It must be empty, because his eyes narrow and he throws the empty cup at the table in front of him.

“Was that necessary?” Sicheng frowns. He gets up and tosses it in the trash.

“Sorry,” Taeyong says, and he does sound apologetic. But that also doesn’t unthrow the coffee cup. “It’s been a bad weekend to the end of a bad month. I didn’t mean to mess up your carpet.”

“Nothing spilled so I guess it’s fine,” Sicheng says. He turns to look at Taeyong, settling in the seat next to him. Truthfully, he had imagined this conversation playing out a little differently. He had wanted Taeyong’s opinion on how to talk to Yuta, how best to apologize, but it appeared that Taeyong was in no position to do anything that didn’t involve growling under his breath.

“Are you okay?” Sicheng asks tentatively.

“We don’t have to do this,” Taeyong replies immediately. “We’re not that kind of people. Let’s just go back to the kites, shall we?”

“No, Taeyong, what’s bothering you?” Sicheng says, even if he’s certain the words _sound_ forced. He is concerned, he is, he’s just not sure how to go about these kind of things.

“Sometimes it’s just frustrating, you know?” Taeyong says, fiddling with the rose quartz necklace the hangs from his neck. “You think you mean something to someone and then you realize, maybe you don’t and maybe actually everything that you thought meant something actually means shit.”

Sicheng blinks at the amount of vague words in that sentence. “Ah. I’m going to need a little more context.”

“You’re going to be mad at me,” Taeyong says, avoiding his gaze.

“Possibly. But I really don’t think I will, you don’t often upset me, it’s why we’re still friends,” Sicheng says. “Do you want me to make you more coffee?”

“No, I just…” Taeyong trails off. He plays with his necklace, trying to find the words. “Right. Fine. I’ll just say it. Be blunt about it.” He inhales deeply. “I have been dating someone for the past two years. And I never told you.”

Two years? Taeyong kept secret the fact that he was dating someone for _two years_? He can barely keep quiet about the birthday presents he buys. “Alright,” Sicheng blinks, eyes wide. “Why did you never tell me?”

“It wasn’t supposed to be a serious thing!” Taeyong says, and buries his face in one of the cushions. “We just hooked up once, and then… it just wasn’t _once_. And then we started seeing each other on-and-off because neither of us wanted a relationship and that was fine at the time but Sicheng,” Taeyong sighs, staring up at the ceiling.

There’s a difference in the way Taeyong speaks now. Gentle. Smiling to himself, like he’s thinking about a happy memory. “I like him. I really, really like him. I think he’s absolutely wonderful, that he’s beautiful and funny and he makes my life so interesting — but I don’t think he feels the same way about me.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be a thing but you’ve been together for two years?” Sicheng detects a note of betrayal in his voice — but is also aware that he hasn’t exactly been the most receptive friend and had Taeyong come to him with this situation earlier, Sicheng would most likely have been incredibly disinterested.

“I know, I know.” Taeyong shoves the laptop to the side, looking thoroughly miserable. “Things were going really good for a while. But now? I think he’s cheating on me. He’s been avoiding seeing for weeks, and he always says that he’s busy working and he asked to see me this weekend but I told him no, because I just _know_ he’s going to break up with me and I don’t want that, I don’t want to lose him—”

Sicheng has seen Taeyong cry many times. Taeyong cries at movies, Taeyong cries at video games, Taeyong cries at Youtube videos of proposals and he’s definitely at least once cried when the grocery store didn’t stock his favourite flavour of milkshake. But Sicheng has never seen Taeyong cry over a person, and that’s because when it comes down to it, Taeyong is aware that there are far better equipped people to handle that kind of situation. It’s so unlike Taeyong to just break down in front of him.

These aren’t the tears Sicheng is familiar with. These are full-blown sobs, and Taeyong’s face grows redder as he hides behind his hands. Sicheng’s heart aches in the way that hearts do when they see such vivid pain. He inhales and pries Taeyong’s hands away from his face and clasps them in his own. If there was ever any doubt about how much Sicheng loves Taeyong, it’s clear now, with his hands coated in tears and snot.

“Taeyong, talk to me,” Sicheng implores.

“I don’t want to see him. If I see him, I know what’s going to happen. He’s either cheating on me, or he just hates me so much he won’t even sit down for half hour lunch. I don’t want to see him, Sicheng, I don’t want to have my heart broken.” Taeyong’s body racks with sobs and Sicheng reaches into his pocket and shoves about five different tissues into Taeyong’s hands. He does always come prepared, after all.

“It’s okay Taeyong, stop crying,” Sicheng says, attempting to be soothing, and Taeyong just bawls harder.

“I’m so sorry Sicheng, I know you don’t want me crying on your couch.”

“I mean you’re right but I don’t want you crying _anywhere_. Do you want to give me his address and I’ll dig through his mail and see if I can sue him?” Sicheng asks, tentatively reaching out his arm and stroking Taeyong’s fringe.

“God, and that’s the other thing,” Taeyong whimpers, looking up and staring at Sicheng, his eyes red and weepy. “You know him.”

“I know him? Your secret boyfriend?” Sicheng raises an eyebrow. His heart abruptly starts to sink. “Taeyong, is it Yuta, are you in love with Yuta—”

The shock of it all causes Taeyong’s tears to abruptly halt. “What? No! No, I’m not in love with Yuta, how many times do I have to tell you I’m not in love with Yuta, stop thinking everyone is in love with Yuta because _you’re_ in love with Yuta. God, no, it’s not Yuta. It’s…” Taeyong inhales. “It’s Ten.”

Oh.

“Ten?”

“Ten,” Taeyong says, swallowing. “You know? Yuta’s best friend.”

“Second best friend. I’m Yuta’s best friend,” Sicheng corrects.

“Does that really matter right now?” Taeyong’s voice is high and shrill.

“No need to yell,” Sicheng blinks. He’s got a lot to process in a very short amount of time. He decides to shelve away ‘you’re in love with Yuta’ for a later time. He doesn’t know how successful he’ll be at compartmentalizing that, but his last employee review form from Jongin mentioned how good he was at filing. He’ll do just that, file away what he’s feeling about that statement, and everything about Yuta in general and focus on ‘it’s Ten’, but that’s still as perplexing. 

“Okay, sorry for yelling, but—”

It can’t be Ten. Taeyong and Ten have only even met, once, like what, two years ago at a Christmas party they hosted at this very apartment. In fact it was still Taeyong who offered to drive Ten home, which was just nice and neighbourly of him. He only texted Sicheng the next morning that he got home safe. And yes, as Sicheng reflects on this, it does seem to make it seem like Taeyong’s telling the truth but it’s merely circumstantial evidence.

There’s also an important fact. Ten made it very clear he’s currently committed. He said himself he’s in a complicated relationship as of right now with someone he adores who he treated poorly and is currently attempting to raise the funds necessary for an engagement ring. In fact, it’s a ring of rose quartz—

Sicheng’s eyes drift down to the necklace that encircles Taeyong’s neck. “That’s rose quartz?”

Taeyong looks like he forgot it even existed. “Uh, yeah. Does that matter?”

“It does. It’s very beautiful,” Sicheng says, and moves back to his own seat. He can sort of understand it. Had Taeyong told Sicheng he hooked up with Ten, Sicheng would most likely have immediately written an entire Harvard-formatted essay on what a terrible idea that was, how unreliable he is, how downright strange he could be — and while Sicheng would be at least partially right, he wouldn’t be wholly right. He clearly would have never been able to predict what a positive influence on his life Ten would be.

Ten was working multiple jobs, simultaneously, all for the goal of getting Taeyong the engagement ring he wants, to show that Ten is so serious about this relationship. Sicheng groans inwardly. He was better off when he only had one friend. Having two, and the two dating each other, just made life so much more complicated.

“Taeyong, I think you should meet up with him,” Sicheng says.

“So he can dump me? So he can tell me to my face that he doesn’t love me, he probably never did, and that everything we had just never mattered in the end?” Taeyong’s stopped crying, and his voice has taken on a razor sharp edge. “I’m not going to be made his fool, Sicheng.”

Sicheng tries to sound as placating as possible. “Taeyong, I don’t think he’s going to break up with you. I think that he wants to show you how much you mean to him, and I think you should give him the chance to do it.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“Then you can give me his address and I’ll dig through his trash and sue him,” Sicheng shrugs. “Go text him. I think it’ll be for the best.”

Taeyong hesitates. “Sicheng, I’m…”

“It’ll be okay, Taeyong. Go text him, I’m going to the bathroom,” Sicheng says, pausing to grab his phone. Ten’s lucky he saved his number.

 

𝚫

 

There was a contract drafted, of course. He wrote it in his phone’s notes in about four minutes and it wasn’t _technically_ legally binding but it would look legally binding _enough_ to someone like Ten. Sicheng wouldn’t charge interest, obviously, he wasn’t awful, but he did make it very clear he expected payments over six months and that it was only because Ten looked like he hadn’t slept in thirty hours. He also had to forward all the documents that Taeil had sent to him regarding the merger so Sicheng could have a foot ahead in negotiations. It was all very fair and only mildly illegal.

Sicheng pretended to be sufficiently surprised when he emerged from the bathroom, and minutes later, Taeyong’s head lifted from his phone. “He wants to meet up right now. He wants to see me at the beach before sunset.”

Sicheng nods. “You should go.”

“Should I?”

Well, he better. Sicheng just Venmo’d Ten half a thousand bucks. If Taeyong missed his own proposal, Sicheng would be very, very peeved. “Come on, Taeyong. Go meet your secret boyfriend.”

Taeyong does stand, but hesitates. “Sicheng, I’m sorry I never told you. I really am. It wasn’t meant to go this far and when it did, I felt like it was already too late to tell you, and I didn’t want you to be upset.”

“Taeyong, you really don’t have to apologize. I don’t think I was being a particularly supportive friend either,” Sicheng says, and is surprised at how relieving honesty feels. “And I hope it all goes well with Ten.”

“When I get back,” Taeyong says, hesitating. “Will you tell me why you haven’t spoken about Yuta in what feels like weeks?”

“I made a mistake. I’m working on it, though.”

“He really cares about you, Sicheng. And you really care about him. You could just care about each other together. Isn’t that the Occam’s razor thing you told me once? The simplest solution is the correct one.”

“You do listen to me, don’t you?” Sicheng doesn’t try and hide his smile.

 

𝚫

 

His door buzzes.

This is not a very common occurrence. Especially because he had just watched his best friend — second best friend, his mind corrects — leave more than an hour ago, especially because his roommate is effectively evicted, and especially because Kun doesn’t know where he lives and he’s trying to keep it that way.

For a wild moment, he thinks it might be Doyoung, the only other rational possibility that comes to mind. Perhaps Doyoung came back, having left something behind, perhaps a shirt or perhaps his virginity.

He berates his own fantastical mind when he opens the door to find perhaps the most anticlimactic visitor of all: a delivery. It’s a box, a fairly big one, and Sicheng hauls it inside, mentally criticizing the delivery man for not bothering to ask for a signature.

It is definitely supposed to be sent here, it has the correct apartment number but Sicheng doesn’t recall ordering anything. It also looks like it’s been through the wringer, the corners of the box are weathered away, and there’s several stamps on the sides that make it seem like it took a few detours to another country or two.

It’s underneath all these stamps, when he examines the label more closely it clears says the receiver is Yuta Nakamoto. Ah.

It’s like the first piece of physical evidence that Yuta isn’t here. It’s almost five on a Sunday afternoon, had things been normal, he would have been here to accept his delivery. Would most likely have been too impatient to open it in his room, would have just grabbed a knife from the kitchen and stabbed it through the cardboard right here in the lounge.

On a notepad of graph paper, he’s started drafting an apology but finds every single word he’s writing is contrived — and just a lie. Of course, Sicheng was sorry to have kicked Yuta out, but he was telling the truth when he said it was starting to hurt to live with him.

Sicheng couldn’t blame himself for avoiding relationships for so long, to love someone meant to allow them to hold such power over you, and to just trust that they wouldn’t do anything to hurt you. That’s a terrifying concept for someone like Sicheng who craves control, who craves the knowledge that he can always rely on himself. And then there’s Yuta. If he has to give up some of that independence, if he has to let himself be vulnerable — there’s no one else that he would rather do it for than Yuta.

There’s a phenomena known as Hick’s law. It claims that the more options a person has, the longer they’ll take to decide. It has a logarithmic relationship and can even be explained by an equation and it’s for this reason after all this time, Sicheng remembers it so well. The human mind is capable of processing information at a speed incredible to behold, but the more and more information given to be processed halts this.

So, the less options there are, the faster a decision is made.

Sicheng runs his fingers over the label. He has a lot of options. He could mail it to Yuta himself, he has his address. He could also just invite Yuta over to talk and give it to him then. That would be the logical thing to do.

It’s a minute to five.

Or perhaps Sicheng should just give it up altogether. Accept that he drove Yuta away, and learn to come to terms with the knowledge that Sicheng was probably never meant to be with him anyway, not like that.

It’s five.

The bus Yuta takes leaves in twenty minutes. He wonders what Yuta is doing, if he’s with his friends, if he’s home. What he’s thinking about, if he had noodles for lunch, if he misses Sicheng, if he’s angry at Sicheng.

The thing about Hick’s law is that it’s correct, the more options you have, the longer it takes to make a decision. But not when it’s Yuta. Not when it’s love. Because as far as Sicheng can see, love just defies every rule of mathematics to begin with.

Sicheng stares at the box for another moment and grabs his keys.

 

𝚫

 

Sicheng fidgets at the door. The package in his hands is heavy. His muscles ache with stiffness. He never really liked the idea of bus rides on a theoretical basis and he isn’t exactly thrilled to confirm his suspicions. No one sat next to him, thankfully, probably because the alarmingly big and battered box was next to him and looked more likely to contain a human head than anything of value.

The box didn't however spare him from the pounding rap songs that played through the drive setting a throb inside his head, the constant bugs meeting their demise against the window or the heat of the sun that seared Sicheng’s skin. He can now be more sure than ever that he really _hates_ taking the bus.

But it was also his only option. Traffic at this hour would be densely packed, and Sicheng was fairly certain any moment that he was not actively moving forward to his destination, was a moment he’d start to reconsider everything that he was doing.

He doesn’t do _spontaneous_ displays of affections, he doesn’t do _displays_ of affection and honestly, in general he doesn’t even do _affection_. Yuta is an exception to another level, is the exception that proves the rule.

Sicheng was at his destination now, Yuta’s dorm door, and he’s never actually been here, but he remembers the room number. Of course he does, he’s always been good at numbers. He’s been holding this package for so long that his fingers start to grow numb. He needs to knock. He needs to stop thinking.

But he can’t deny that he’s afraid that Yuta will take one look at him and slam the door in his face. Sicheng doesn’t think he’d survive that, not at all. Yuta was someone who could handle having his heartbroken and still bounce back, Sicheng was not nearly as strong in the slightest.

And then he thinks of Yuta, and his morning jogging, and his piercing gaze, and his morning voice, and the way he never does the dishes, and Sicheng isn’t prepared to lose that. He knocks.

“Sicheng?” Yuta says, opening the door. He pauses, blinking. “Sicheng?”

“Hello,” he says. His mouth is dry.

Yuta rubs his eyes with the back of his wrists. He’s wearing a loose-fitted shirt and his hair is fuzzy and tangled, like it looks when he accidentally ends up napping on the couch. Sicheng has an urge to run his hands through it.

Yuta surveys Sicheng from top to bottom, and then digs his nails into the flesh of his upper arm so hard he yelps. “Right okay, so you are actually here. Um. Right. Uh… Why are you here?”

To say he seems blindsided would be an understatement.

“You have a delivery,” is all Sicheng can manage to say.

“I have a delivery,” Yuta replies, slowly, enunciating each word. “I have a delivery?”

Sicheng nods. Yuta’s gaze is doubtful.

“How did you even get here? They don’t exactly allow strangers into the premises,” Yuta says.

“I just gave my name in at the desk. I don’t think they thought I was much of a threat.”

“Clearly they’re all fools then, you’re the deadliest person in any room you walk into,” Yuta mumbles. “But like, still, that’s ridiculous, where did you even park?”

It’s good to know the only trauma he suffered from the ride here was emotional in nature, and not physical. “Oh. I don’t have my car.”

Yuta snorts, leaning in the doorframe. “Sure, yeah, you took the bus.”

Sicheng doesn’t reply, just stares down at his own hands. He really needs to cut his nails. His cuticles don’t look the best.

“Sicheng, you don’t even like touching doorknobs. You’re not telling me you sat on a public bus for two hours to hand deliver me a box.”

Maybe he should go for a manicure. He knows there’s some very dignified men’s manicures available at the moment. After all, handshakes are the basic component of every introduction, and nails are a fundamental part of the hand.

“Sicheng?”

And Sicheng’s eyes snap back up. Yuta looks weary. “You should come inside,” he says and closes the door behind him.

 

Yuta, when left to his own devices, is an individual who creates messes all around him. Already, Sicheng is tempted to just leave Yuta waiting on the couch while he does the dishes for him. It’ll just make the whole room seem so much better, it’s so distressing that when he sits in the lounge, he has full view of a sink full of towering plates, all sticky with soy sauce.

And Sicheng could spend all his time criticizing his apartment. Sicheng doesn’t think he’s ever let a vacuum run through this place, at least not consciously. Empty chip packets and soda bottles litter the area surrounding the TV, and there’s several sweaty shirts just draped across any sort of horizontal surface.

“Had you told me you were coming I might have at least tried to sort out the mess,” Yuta mutters under his breath. “I swear I know how to do laundry, I’ve just been putting it off.”

“It’s fine,” Sicheng says quickly. “Though, actually, if you like, I could quickly run some hot water and just sort out the sink, shouldn’t take me more than fifteen minutes.”

“Sicheng,” Yuta says, in a tone that he usually reserves for people he’s about to impolite to, “I don’t think you travelled two hours by bus to do my damn dishes.”

He isn’t wrong. “Your delivery. I…”

“Can we just put a pause on the delivery for a second? Sicheng, I think you owe me… _something_. An argument? An explanation? I haven’t fucking decided, but you definitely owe me more than sitting on my couch and staring into space.” Sicheng anticipated it as much, but it still hurts to hear Yuta be so cold towards him of all people. The Yuta he knows is nothing but warm to him.

Sicheng wonders where he should begin. Should he start off with summer, should he explain what it was like to be reminded of how much he adored Yuta on a daily basis? Should he mention the stab of jealousy when Doyoung used to come over? Or should he go further back, should he go back to that night some years back when Yuta looked at him with stars in his eyes and asked him how gravity worked and Sicheng knew how gravity worked but didn’t know how gravity _worked_.

Because this is gravity, this is a force that pulls them together, that they exert on each other, and it’s never been stronger when they look at each other from across the room.

“Yuta, I’m sorry.”

For what seems like one of the first times in his life, Yuta looks speechless.

Sicheng presses on. “Yuta, I’m sorry. I’ve been hurting you and that’s never been what I wanted, it’s the opposite of what I want. I kept thinking that what I was doing was the best for you but it was wrong of me to assume I knew what that was. You’re not one of my clients, I shouldn’t look at you and think how I plan to improve you, because to me you’ve always been as close to perfect as anyone ever could be.” His voice is shaky. Unsteady. He looks at Yuta for clarity, for guidance, for anything but he stares straight into Sicheng like he’s peering at the threads of his soul.

This is what vulnerability is, after all.

“Yuta, I don’t want you to move out.” That’s the easy part of a mathematical proof. That’s the fact, that’s the answer. What comes next is the difficult part, even in maths: the reasoning. “I never wanted you to because living with you, getting to see you is the highlight of my week. I spent everyday waiting for the Friday that you’ll come through the door. And I think you kind of know that, because you’ve always just _known_ me. But I didn’t want you to _not_ take that job just because you thought I wouldn’t be okay without you.”

Yuta, who struggled to keep quiet in movie theatres, is silent. The absence of sound has never been so noticeable before.

Sicheng sighs. “Yuta? Could you let me know what you’re thinking? I’m sorry.”

Yuta finally makes a sound, breaks his own blank facade, and it’s an exhale that comes from his lips. He reaches up to his face and runs his hands through his hair. “You know, you literally broke my nose and you never said sorry. You blamed me, told me it was my fault I was standing in the way, refused to take any responsibility even while my face was painted red.” He shakes his head, and seems to smile at the memory. “I always remember that. That you were literally trying to stop the bleeding but still wouldn’t say sorry. And you’re here, apologizing, right now.”

“Can’t believe you remember that,” Sicheng says, looking away in guilt.

“Of course I did,” Yuta says, almost as if it would be ridiculous to expect otherwise. “That day changed my life. I’d never met anyone like you and I think I knew from that moment I never would either.”

It’s not fair that Yuta can just cut through his armour like this. Sicheng struggles to breathe. “Yuta, I’m so sorry. I never meant to force you to do anything.”

“I’m trying to wrap my head around this and it’s difficult,” Yuta says, but his voice isn’t unkind. He leans forward, as if it will help him understand. “So you made a mistake in kicking me out and you came here with a box to apologize? This doesn’t seem like you.” The confusion is evident in Yuta’s face. He’s known him for three years. There’s no one who knows Sicheng like Yuta knows him. “I just don’t understand.”

But that was the problem, Yuta’s assuming Sicheng would act logically. When it comes to Yuta, though, logic falls in favour of him. Sicheng does things he won’t normally do, says things he normally won’t say, will throw himself on a thousand blades if it meant seeing Yuta smile. Nothing about the way Sicheng feels about Yuta is logical.

“It’s not even my package,” Yuta snorts, more to himself.

“It has your name on it,” Sicheng protests.

“Yeah, it does, but it’s not mine.” Yuta stands up, and for a moment, Sicheng thinks he’s going to leave. But all he does is grab scissors out of a drawer in the kitchen, place it on top of the box and slide it back to Sicheng. “Go ahead.”

Sicheng tries to cut into the tape, but it’s resistant, the cardboard refusing to budge. “I think the scissors might be blunt—”

“God, give me a minute, nothing in this place fucking works,” Yuta grunts and disappears into what Sicheng assumes his room.

He keeps wedging the blade of the scissors into the packaging tape, eyes doing a sweep of the apartment. It’s amusing to see that Yuta eats the same brand of cereal that they do at home as well. He must really like it. In fact, there’s quite a few traces of Sicheng in this apartment, even though he’s never even been here before. There’s several photo frames filled with pictures of the two of them, and Sicheng can’t stop himself grinning at them.

It’s only then Sicheng notices the calendar. It’s just so big that he didn’t even realize what it was. It hangs on the opposite wall, and it’s got a very chiselled soccer player as the picture for the month, but it’s not that which catches Sicheng’s eyes. It’s the dates. Every single weekend is encircled in a green highlighter, with exclamations all around it.

The blade pierces through the box at about the same time the realization hits. Yuta looks forward to those weekends as much as Sicheng does. Sicheng pulls off the rest of the tape and opens the flaps of cardboard, and stares inside at the contents.

“Here’s another one, maybe this works—” Yuta breaks off as he returns and sees Sicheng with the open box. “Well, there you go.”

“Yuta,” Sicheng breathes out. “What is this?”

He knows what it is. Of course, he knows what it is.

“It’s a kite,” Yuta says. “It’s a Delta kite.”

“Why did you get me a Delta kite?”

“Yours broke. Ages ago. You still told me it didn’t really matter to you, you told me that you hardly flew Delta kites anymore, you could always use Taeyong’s, you gave me so many excuses I knew you must have really wanted another one.” Yuta averts his gaze, settling back into the couch. “I guess it got lost in customs, but it found its way here eventually, I guess. I hope you like it. I know it’s a bit of an ugly green but it reminded me of that kite you had ages ago, the one—”

“That reminded you of Teletubbies,” Sicheng completes.

“Exactly.”

Is it possible to mathematically express the exact point of no return when you fall in love?

It would be an exponential curve, certainly, love is not linear, it doesn't follow a set pattern of 1, 2, 3. Love is more like 1, and then it's fine because you're just 1, but alright fine, then it's 4, and then 9 and even that's fine but suddenly now it's 16, and it’s getting steeper and you’re getting deeper and you blink and it's a 196 and suddenly 1 is so far away you can't see it, it’s nothing but a distant memory of what used to be.

So, love is most likely exponential and that means it can be graphed. And that means somewhere at the intersection of 1 and infinity is the point of no return, is the moment where love is all consuming and unavoidable and suffocating.

Sicheng’s passed that point a long time ago. Sicheng’s been in love with Yuta for so long he doesn’t think he knows what it’s like to not be.

And he could buy flowers or recite a poem, but isn’t it Occam’s razor, that the simplest solution is the best solution, that if Sicheng wants to tell Yuta that he loves him, then he should just—

“Yuta, I love you.” The words are fragile. Awkward. Delicate. He gives them to Yuta with a heart that’s exposed and bare, all armour chipped off. “Yuta, I love you so much it hurts to look at you. Every stupid decision I make, every impulsive and irrational choice is all because I love you and I have no idea what to do about it. I’ve tried to deny it, I’ve tried to get over it and I just can’t.”

Sicheng’s heart races like he’s running a marathon.

“Sicheng,” Yuta murmurs, eyes wide, but no, this isn’t Yuta’s time to speak yet. Not now. He shifts closer. Sicheng breathes in.

“I thought that if I saw you less, I could get over it. I thought if I saw you more, I could get over it. But I can’t. This is allconsuming and this is just everything inside of me. I know that I broke your heart, and I can’t expect you to give me another chance, but Yuta, please know that I never wanted you to leave, I never did. I just… I’ve always just loved you so much.”

“What do you mean by that?” Yuta says, his voice cracking. “What do you mean by ‘love’?”

Sicheng gazes helplessly. “I mean love in the awful way that I love. Where you’re my moral compass even when I want to sail in the other direction. Where I get up to jog with you even though you know I hate running. I mean in the way that I end up watching your soccer games even though I barely know the sport.”

Yuta’s gaze is fixed on him. Sicheng dares not move a muscle.

“Yuta, I’m very, very bad at this, I’m not good at relationships but please know I’m being honest. If you’ve already moved on, if you don’t love me anymore like you once did, that’s fine, just tell me, and I’ll get over it.” He exhales. “But I had to say something. I had to tell you. I have to stop making decisions for you, based on what I think you need or want. So there. You have the facts.”

And when you’re doing a mathematical proof, you always end with the answer. Which is exactly what Sicheng does when he says, again: “I love you.”

Yuta mutters something indecipherable under his breath. Then, he looks up at Sicheng, and breathes out: “Fuck.”

“I didn’t catch the first part,” Sicheng says, voice a little higher than it should be.

“For someone with a Master’s degree, you can be pretty fucking dense if you think that after all this time, I could ever stop being in love with you.” 

Yuta surges forward and holds Sicheng’s head in his hands, cradles it, and his breath is hot as it fans over his face. It’s the first time Yuta’s touched him in weeks but it feels like it’s been years, and Sicheng’s entire body reacts, sparking like electricity. Yuta always was warm, and right now he feels like the fire underneath his skin has spread to his lips as well. “You love me?”

And Sicheng who never apologizes, not even when he breaks someone’s nose, because he’s never wrong, not really, but knows he keeps hurting Yuta despite his best intentions, looks down into Yuta’s piercing eyes, and relaxes into his hold, his eyelids fluttering shut. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I do and I’m so bad at it.”

Yuta kisses him, so immediately, without wasting any time, without second-guessing, like he’s been waiting for this. He just tilts his head up and their lips meet and Sicheng gasps at the contact. Yuta must think that to be some sort of rejection because he starts to part, but Sicheng pulls Yuta back towards him, reconnecting their lips.

He’d imagined kissing Yuta in the dreams he kept locked from his conscious self, and perhaps it was for the best that he never considered it in too much detail, because anything his mind could fathom could not compare to how wonderful it is to actually kiss Yuta, to feel their lips together, to feel himself being held like he’s something precious. 

It’s more than he could have imagined. Yuta kisses him with more grace than he expected, slowly and wholly, and even when it’s starting to get sloppy, when their tongues and lips slide together carelessly, Yuta is still so steady against him. He lets his hands travel down from Sicheng’s chest, but to his arms instead until their fingers interlink, and he breaks the kiss. Sicheng stares at the place where they’re connected, and curses at the way his heart races even more than when they were kissing.

“Sicheng?” Yuta says, his voice betraying a smile. Sicheng avoids eye contact with him, deciding to just let his eyelids flutter closed and let Yuta kiss him again.

Oh, this is nice. _Oh,_ this is more than nice. This is actually kind of incredible from the way Yuta licks into his mouth like he’s starving to the feel of his fingers as they venture down from his cheekbones to his neck to his clavicle, mapping each and every part of his skin.

Sicheng runs his thumb over the back of Yuta’s hand.

“Sicheng?” and this time Yuta sings it out until Sicheng finally lifts his head up, and Yuta steals a second-long kiss before he pulls back. “This is real? This is happening?”

“I don’t know,” Sicheng says. This honesty thing might actually work out, it’s so much easier than running through every conceivable answer in his mind before choosing the one that seems the best. “Please don’t move out. I’m sorry. I’m very, very sorry. I didn’t mean to kick you out, and I didn’t mean to fall in love with you, and I _definitely_ didn’t mean to tell you, I don’t know what I’m doing, I _told_ you I was bad at relationships—”

“ _Relationships_ ,” Yuta repeats in a squeak, and throws himself back at Sicheng’s mouth with such force that he stumbles backwards, catching himself on the kitchen table for balance, and this proves to be a good choice, as he slides onto the surface and Yuta takes the diminished height difference as a chance to properly sling his arms around Sicheng’s neck and kiss him with all that restrained passion he keeps locked away.

Sicheng tightens his legs around Yuta’s waist, craving more contact with his body. Yuta is murmuring something in between kisses. “I can’t hear you,” Sicheng breathes.

“I just,” Yuta nudges his forehead against Sicheng’s. “I can’t believe this. I cannot believe you’ve been keeping this from me for months, do you know how much we could have done in that time and you came here to apologize to me, you took the damn _bus_ —”

It’s at this point Yuta gives up on speaking. 

Sicheng exhales when Yuta travels down his neck, licking and biting at the skin there, because as he’s finding out, Yuta really likes to bite. He sucks and nibbles until dark red bruises flourish, and leaves periodic kisses as if in apology. Sicheng thinks that this kitchen table is really nice — mahogany is it? — and it’s probably expensive and Sicheng doesn’t really want to leave his nail imprints on such a lovely piece of furniture but Yuta’s mouth is so talented he doesn’t know how much he can take.

Perhaps Yuta has a similar thought process.

“Can I take you to my bedroom, baby?” Yuta whispers into the skin of his neck. “Can I show you how much I love you?”

Sicheng exhales, and he’s not sure which of those words affect him the most. “Please.”

Yuta throws everything off his bed, and he treats Sicheng so gently, motioning for him to sit down before Yuta perches on his lap, throwing his arms around his neck. “I never got over you, not completely, you know? How could I? You’re actually perfect.”

Yuta shifts and hooks his lips under Sicheng’s jaw and resumes his biting, periodically breaking off to continue talking, as if this isn’t affecting Sicheng in such a physical way, as if he isn’t struggling to breathe, his poor mind still caught somewhere between the kitchen table and here.

“Sometimes I did wonder to myself when I’d catch you staring, but I thought it was just wish-fulfillment, just confusing my fantasies with reality. I can’t believe I was actually right about something.” He giggles into the skin and looks at Sicheng, and his eyes are brimming with such devotion, Sicheng can’t help but lean forward and kiss him.

This is mine, Sicheng decides. _This is mine_ and no one else gets to have him anymore, the look in his eyes are reserved for Sicheng only, the weight of his hands on his shoulders, the way his kisses taste. _This is mine_ , and it’s for this reason that Sicheng bites so hard onto Yuta’s lip it bleeds and Yuta pulls away, laughing.

“Okay, fair enough, I probably deserve that. Maybe I should have asked before marking your neck, but can you blame me? I’ve been waiting such a long time,” and then Yuta has the damn nerve to pout and Sicheng realizes he’s given him too much power, it’s too late, now he’ll have to put up with all of Yuta’s annoyances forever.

The reminder of waiting hurts though and Sicheng tries to shove his feelings down and kiss him through it all but it starts to burn a weight in the back of his throat and he breaks their connection.

“Yuta, I’m so sorry for what I said,” he exhales. “For everything. I mean it.”      

“Oh, baby,” Yuta whispers and he holds Sicheng closer to him, impossibly close, they can’t be anymore closer than if each individual atom was touching. He lets Sicheng lie down on his bed, and drapes himself over him. He drops the most gentle kisses all over Sicheng’s face, his eyebrows, his cheekbones, his nose, his chin, his lips. He kisses like this might be the only opportunity he’ll ever get to do this, and he needs to do everything he’s ever wanted to, just in case the clock strikes midnight, just in case it vanishes.

“Yuta, I’m serious,” Sicheng says, interlocking their hands together. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I hurt you so much and I don’t just mean now, I mean back then, I swear I just didn’t want to—”

“Baby, it’s okay,” Yuta says, taking his lips again. The endearment does something to Sicheng’s heart that he can’t begin to describe. “I can’t believe you just kept this inside for so long? Sicheng, it must have burned.”

Sicheng pauses. Yuta’s always been so caring, so perceptive, so _empathetic_ in a way Sicheng could not even begin to comprehend. Even now, he thinks of Sicheng, what it was like to watch him and want him. Sicheng exhales.

“Of course it did, of course, but Yuta, you—” Sicheng swallows. He’s staring right at Yuta. He can’t say something like that, not now, not so early.

“What about me?” Yuta asks, carefully. His eyes are like the moon.

“You loved me. For so long.” And then the anxiety unfurls itself in his chest. “I mean, that’s what you kind of said, maybe you didn’t necessarily mean it like that—”

“Sicheng, I love you.”

Sicheng tries not to cry.

“I love you, I really, really love you and I’ve loved you for three years now, that it just became part of who I am. I know what it feels like to love you, it doesn’t hurt me, it makes me feel stronger.” A smile grows on Yuta’s face as he brushes strands of hair out of Sicheng’s face. “But I know what you’re like, I know how guarded you keep your heart, I know how much you hate to be vulnerable, and I can only imagine how much it must have hurt to think you couldn’t have me.” Yuta takes their hands and presses a kiss over the place where their fingers connect like a bridge. “But you can. You can have me.”

Sicheng exhales, tightening the grip of his fingers around Yuta’s. “Good. You’re mine, now.”

“I get to kiss you forever now, right?” Yuta asks, laughing.

“You have to. I’ll physically die if you don’t. I’m reasonably certain about that,” Sicheng frowns. “I can’t believe I’m allowing this. You know how much I hate people touching me.” Yuta already knows he’s not serious, Yuta knows every single one of his defense mechanisms and keeps them alphabetized in his mind.

“I’ll take full advantage of this concession,” Yuta says and cups Sicheng’s jaw in his hand, and this time when he kisses him, there’s no room for further conversation. Their kiss deepens and Sicheng finds it impossible not to be lost in the way Yuta kisses, intensely passionate and passionately intense. It’s just so distinctly him.

His hand runs up the curve of his spine and Sicheng gasps at the sensation, and Yuta, fucking Yuta, has the audacity to _giggle_. He’s enjoying this too much, he’s deriving too much pleasure from finding out the precise way to make Sicheng gasp and moan.

“I’m taking this off,” Sicheng announces, attempting to regain the power that he lost, as he tugs on Yuta’s shirt. He looks up at Yuta, grinning in amusement.

“Go ahead, I’m not stopping you.”

It was perhaps something akin to a mistake. With Yuta on his back now, his bare skin is tanned and toned and on display and Sicheng stares from on top, unable to cope with all the million possibilities he’d like to do with this newfound opportunity.

“Are you just gonna stare? Should I flex?” Yuta says, his voice as light as the wind. Sicheng flushes, unsure where to begin and Yuta, his ever-perceptive Yuta, takes his hand in his own and places it on his chest, fingers brushing against his nipple.

“I like this,” he says.

“With other people, you mean,” Sicheng says, a very vivid hint of jealousy in his voice.

“Yeah, with other people, but I’ll like it more with you. I like everything more with you,” Yuta says. His breathing starts to falter when Sicheng massages into the skin, digging into the muscle underneath. It’s interesting seeing Yuta like this, seeing him unravel.

Unravel because of him.

Sicheng leans down and takes his nipple into his mouth and Yuta arches off the sheets, gasping. He’s whispering a steady stream of profanity that would make Sicheng blush if he were not already occupied licking up and down the expanse of Yuta’s chest.

“Fuck Sicheng, yes, God,” he murmurs, his hand gripping to Sicheng’s hair clumsily. His fingers retract and extend with each ministration of Sicheng’s tongue and his cock hardens noticeably in his pants.

“Sicheng, wait,” Yuta breathes, getting up on his elbows, staring into Sicheng’s eyes. His pupils are wide. “I’m not… you know I’m not good with words. I just…”

“What’s wrong?” 

“Can I show you how much I love you?”

Even now, he waits for Sicheng, waits for his mind to wrap itself around the idea. He’s so patient. Yuta will cancel a food order if it takes longer than twenty minutes to arrive and has broken entire phones because they were too slow but when it comes to Sicheng, he waited for literal years.

“Yuta, I’m yours,” Sicheng finally says and he never knew the truth could feel so freeing until he sees it flash in Yuta’s eyes.

“Good. Good, I don’t want anyone else, I’m tired of settling. You don’t know how many people I’ve fucked trying to forget you,” Yuta murmurs, kissing up and down Sicheng’s neck.

“Well, sure, tell me more about them while you’re currently making out with me,” Sicheng frowns. He didn’t need further proof of the fact that while Sicheng glued his thighs shut, Yuta was quite happily getting his own doses of oxytocin on a regular basis.

“If you insist,” Yuta says, grinning in that horrible way of his when he’s about to be awful. “There was Doyoung obviously, he was around the longest, he had this thing where he had absolutely no gag reflex, honestly, it was incredible, the best head I ever had in my life—”

Sicheng drags Yuta up by his hair and slots their mouths together because he knows for a fact that Yuta can’t talk with a tongue in his mouth. They pant against each other and Sicheng can _feel_ Yuta giggle, even as they’re kissing and he pulls away just to glare at him. “Why are you like this?”

“I’m just so happy I have a lifelong pass to tease you, and you just have to deal with it now because I know you love me,” Yuta says, and Sicheng wonders if his heart will ever get over the way it skips every time Yuta says the word ‘love’.    

“I take it back,” Sicheng says mumbling into Yuta’s neck.

“No, you don’t,” Yuta says, loops his arms around his neck. “You’re all mine and you _love_ me, you said you loved me so much you couldn’t even _look_ at me, that’s so _gay_ —”

Sicheng has to kiss him again just to stop him from going any further. And then he just keeps kissing him because he likes it. He might even say he loves it.

It’s a reasonably known fact that Yuta is rough. Sicheng knows this from testimonials from his friends, and he knows it from the way the walls shake when Yuta has a ‘friend’ over and he certainly knew it after walking into his room and finding Doyoung tied and bound to the bed frame with a ball gag in his mouth. Sicheng knows that Yuta has a whole drawer of toys, and a whole list of the things he enjoys doing and having done to him, and Sicheng had mentally prepared for this, he’s done a Google search one dark and lonely Wednesday night, got his hard limits, a safeword in mind but that’s not at all what happens, not at all.

Yuta gazes at him with absolute reverence, trailing kisses up and down his legs into the expanse of his thighs and back up to his naval, his hands stroking Sicheng’s cock. He’s meticulously gentle and it’s so tender it hurts. He holds Sicheng like he might fracture, and he breaks off every few seconds to go back and kiss him. Every place where Yuta touches burns in the most enjoyable of blazes. His touch travels throughout his entire body and Sicheng sighs in unabashed enjoyment.

Sicheng gazes at him, and it’s difficult, his eyes heavy-lidded with pleasure that’s been building up within him for the past hour. “Yuta, do you want to do anything to me—” Sicheng pauses, unable to focus on anything for a moment then Yuta’s teeth over the skin of his thighs. “Do you need anything?”

And Yuta shakes his head, the softest smile spreading across his face like the crack of dawn, hands over Sicheng’s legs. “All I need is you.”

Sicheng comes in Yuta’s hand, and it’s not at all earth-shattering, no it’s as ridiculously soothing as breathing, it’s always so natural with Yuta, it always feels like this is what it’s meant to be. Sicheng doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to purge his mind of this image, of seeing Yuta flushed, sweat on his brow and so _happy_. His hair is tufted from where Sicheng dug his nails in when Yuta came against his stomach. The marks that litter his body are such visible proof that Yuta belongs to him. Sicheng revels in the sight.

“Baby?” Yuta asks, “Should I clean us up?”

Sicheng inhales deeply, trying to remember what air feels like. It seems thinner here. “Don’t you dare leave me,” Sicheng mutters, pulling Yuta to his chest and curling in, hooking his head underneath his chin. “Never ever.”

“What about work?” Yuta says, amused. Mr. Briefcase can go fuck himself, his job doesn’t matter.

“We can both Skype call, I don’t care anymore,” Sicheng says and he doesn’t think Yuta can hear anything, not when his words are muffled by Yuta’s chest. He laughs and wraps his arm around Sicheng and kisses the crown of his head. The sunlight that streams through the window fades to twilight and fades to black, and Sicheng doesn’t move, not from how safe and secure he feels in Yuta’s arms.

“You’ll move back in, right?” Sicheng asks, having tossed the question in his mind for the past hour.

“I don’t know, you see, I’m ridiculously in love with my roommate and I just made him come while calling out my name, so it might make things a little awkward.”

“Your jokes are awful,” Sicheng frowns.

Yuta sticks his tongue. “Well, too bad, you’re stuck with it now. Better get used to it. Just wait, I’m going to ask Ten to give me a book of bad puns for my birthday.”

Sicheng starts to protest and Yuta just squishes him against his chest, and it’s hard to be too upset with him because it’s actually quite nice to be that close to him. Eventually, they stop moving and Yuta reaches down and connects their hands.

“What are you thinking about?” Sicheng says softly, nosing closer to him.

“Honestly? God, I can’t wait to defile every single surface of our place together. It’s gonna be great.”

Sicheng snorts.

“What are you thinking about?” Yuta asks, suddenly shy, avoiding his gaze.

“I’m just thinking about this principle in maths.”

Perhaps love was never an equation or a graph to begin with. Perhaps it was just always meant to be an expression, to be something unexplainable but undoubtedly real. Sort of like infinity, definitely real but impossible to define. But that’s just love in general. And the thing that Sicheng has with Yuta, this thing between them now as they lie next to each other, the world being put on pause, is something different.

It’s like _delta_ , the mathematical expression which means _change_. It’s sort of like a kite, a kite that Sicheng flew some three years ago. It’s like a Delta kite, pointing towards the sky in its effortless journey, as it soars against the great blue. It’s a kite that he can’t quite forget. A kite Yuta can’t forget either.

“Tell me about it,” Yuta says, and he smiles broadly. “Try and explain it to me. I promise I’ll do my best to understand.”

 

𝚫

 

“God, Sicheng, that almost went in my face!” Ten shrieks, jumping back from a narrow collision.

“I mean it was literally your fault for walking there. It’s a kite festival. There’s kites everywhere. You need to move around them,” Sicheng says, but there’s no real venom behind his words.

It wouldn’t even matter if there was, Ten ignores Sicheng and drapes himself behind Taeyong, who almost loses his balance, his kite taking a brief nosedive.

“Ten, please!” Taeyong cries, vaguely swatting the air around him with one hand. He misses entirely. Sicheng doesn’t think Taeyong was even really trying to hit him. “We’re trying to fly here.”

“Listen to the man,” Sicheng says, but Ten continues to pester Taeyong, leaning in and leaving kisses on his neck in between Taeyong’s slaps. “Ten, you’re awful.”

“I’m incredible and you know this for a fact,” Ten says, and finally relives Taeyong of his onslaught of kisses. He moves closer to Sicheng again, who raises a single eyebrow in warning.

“What are you smiling at?” Sicheng demands.

“Can’t I just be happy?” Ten pouts. “I’m with some of my loveliest friends in the world. I also regularly get to sleep with one of them. My life is amazing,”

“I’m glad you’ve reached the fifth stage of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Self-Actualization. Please attain it somewhere further away from me, though. Your existence is affecting my flying.”

Truthfully, he’s not doing much. It’s past six now, and the sun has started to set. Most casual festival goers have already retired to their homes, and the only people left are the enthusiasts like Taeyong and Sicheng. And they’re just flying for fun, because there’s nothing quite as beautiful as a kite against a twilight sky.

“Is Yuta done with his exam yet?” Taeyong asks, reigning his kite in.

Sicheng would have felt his phone vibrate. “I don’t think so. He hasn’t texted me since he went into write it. But he’ll be fine, he’s been studying so hard for it. He keeps calling me in the middle of the night and asking me to go over discipline techniques with him — Ten, lower your eyebrows, it’s not as interesting as you think.”

“Finally, there’ll be a graduation he actually wants to attend,” Ten says thoughtfully. “Boo, will you come up with me for it?”

“Of course,” Taeyong answers, and beams. “I haven’t been to uni in so long, I wonder if the bars are still like I remember them. I’d love to check them out again.”

“Can he finish his exams before we start planning his graduation party?” Sicheng sighs — but already he thinks when he goes home, he might start planning an itinerary. Yuta’s worked so hard this year, he deserves a big celebration for when the end comes with all his friends — and then afterwards, he deserves a very private celebration in the comfort of their home.

“Okay, so there’s another reason I’m happy,” Ten admits, twisting the rose quartz ring on his finger.

“And what is it?” Sicheng asks. He doesn’t trust Ten. He’ll never trust Ten. He cheats at Pictionary. He’s proven himself time and time again to never be trusted.

“Don’t worry, I asked my fiancé and he said it was fine. He actually encouraged me to do it.”

Sicheng’s eyes widen. He really can’t do much but move his face. Anything else causes the box kite he’s flying to abruptly sink, and it already took so much effort lifting it up into the air.

“Do _what_?” Sicheng says, unable to keep the concern out of his voice.

And then Ten leans in and pecks Sicheng’s cheek, before abruptly bouncing back, hiding behind Taeyong’s lithe form.

“Ten, I hope you realize the second I put this kite down, I’m actually going to have to murder you,” Sicheng says. He hopes Ten doesn’t think he’s joking. He’s serious. He’s going to actually have to butcher his second best friend’s fiancé. It’s very tragic, but unfortunately anyone who kisses Sicheng that isn’t Yuta has to die.

“God, that was amazing to watch.”

Sicheng has to stop himself from spinning around, lest Ten gets decapitated with the string of the kite — but it’s Yuta, he knows it’s Yuta. His suspicions are confirmed when he feels his lips kiss his cheek, right on the spot Ten did moments earlier.

“You _planned_ this?” Sicheng says, outraged. Betrayal never comes from your enemies.

“I mean, that makes it sound like there was actual thought behind it,” Yuta says in a very placating tone of voice. “It was more like Ten coming to my room at Bishop’s one night, very drunk, and telling me that he was obsessed with how cute you were and that he felt like he might die if he doesn’t kiss you on the cheek one day.”

“You left me as a sacrifice?”

Yuta pecks him again. “Kind of. Yes. I’m sorry. It was very cute though, I’m sure we’re all going to treasure this moment forever.”

“You’re awful and I never want to talk to you again,” Sicheng says, and turns his back to Yuta, who just laughs.

Yuta breaks away from Sicheng to exchange words with Taeyong and Ten. Sicheng tries to crane his ear to hear what they’re talking about, but can’t quite make it out, and refuses to turn around and give them the satisfaction of visible eavesdropping.

He feels Yuta step behind him a moment later.

“I was joking, I do still want to talk to you,” Sicheng mumbles, and Yuta laughs, pulling him closer.

“I know you were. Come on, take a slow walk with me. I promise it’s not a jog.”

It’ll be a slow walk indeed, trying to keep his kite consistently flying, but Yuta doesn’t seem to mind. He’s just enjoying the atmosphere of it all, the splash of colourful kites against the orange sky.

“You didn’t tell me your exam was done,” Sicheng says.

“I wanted to surprise you. I’m glad I made it in time to see some of the festival. It’s beautiful, as always.” Yuta looks at him when he says that. Sicheng’s heart still races. He doesn’t think it will ever stop.

“Event of the year,” Sicheng says, nudging Yuta’s shoulder, smiling into the crook of his neck.

“Exactly,” Yuta exhales, and entwines Sicheng’s hand with his. “Can’t wait to be here next year, and the year after that.”   

The kite strings tangle together, and Sicheng decides he likes it best this way.   

**Author's Note:**

> my absolute gratitude goes to [shauna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkwinwin/pseuds/pinkwinwin)  
> for being the most wonderful and considerate beta and for cheering me on and crying with me through this entire fic.
> 
> i also have to give my thanks to kali for being my eternal supporter in everything, saph for her wonderful encouragement from the beginning, yas for her incredible creative insight, and as always, my love to steph for being the most awful in the best way.
> 
> and again, happy birthday miss hyb, many years more may you reign.
> 
> comments and kudos are my favourite thing in the world so please do let me know what you think! you can find me on:  
> \- [twitter](https://twitter.com/minhyukwithagun/)  
> \- [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/minhyukwithagun/)  
> \- under your local drawbridge
> 
> thanks for reading 💕


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